6.28.5

colored pencil done last week during visit down the mountain.

today i want to clarify more of the memes floating around concerning the war, the discontent, the frustration, and mostly the trance the usa collective mind set has demonstrated for awhile.

coup d'etat: looking backwards, the phrase brings up images of small groups of - usually - military seizing the govt. you know this image: they roll tanks in, capture the radio station, institute martial law, and wear ornate banana republic uniforms. soon people begin to disappear.

but what about a contemporary event in a first world country? in the miasma of branded culture, such a thing would be laughed out of existence. the thing to do would be to take over, say, the republican party. and by hook or crook or both get elected. present a harmless, inept doofus as el presidente. note that no military force is involved, and the change is "procedurally correct".

note also that one of the most advanced europeon countries in the 20th c. experieced such a deal. hitler did not steal the power to control germany. it was all - barely - legal. and then the first thing he did was to go after the judiciary.

i would hazard a guess that the german citizens then muttered about it, withdrew from any idea that something wasn't quite right, and did their best to keep living as they had before, waiting for it to go away.

maybe i live in a small world, but literally everyone i personally know seems to be in a similar state today. in my lifetime the electorate has gone from being "john q. public" - a little cartoon man with a globe for a head and a mustache - to a "consumer" to "the audience" or viewer.

we're uncomfortable with the situation, but comfortable with being uncomfortable. we're waiting for the national soap opera to surprise us. the next shoe to drop in the drama we are viewing from the living room.

6.26.5

photo of melissa and brand new granddaughter natalie grace parsons. she was born about ten days earlier than expected, but is all there and more.

looks like i will spend the day fixing blogger so i can post without doing cartwheels around the mulberry bush i dread messing with it.

[i fixed it?]

don't know. but driving back yesterday i picked up WNCW - i can't pull it in at home - and heard the announcer mention clyde mattocks on dobro which tickled me. he's the other grandfather of the beautiful baby pictured above.

Country Standard Time: CD Bill Lyerly"Along with Lyerly's impressive guitar work the album is carried musically by Mattocks' stellar work on dobro, pedal steel, banjo and mandolin."

6.25.5

just got back from chapel hill in a few pieces. natalie grace parsons is a very special little person everybody a-ok. pleasant interlude with jim and doug. did quite a few pencil drawings.

6.24.5

friday morning, i'm struggling with a laptop. one monumentally obvious design flaw:
they should either have illuminated keyboard or white keys with large black alphanumeric showing,

i'm at nicole's headed for eli & melissa's. heading back sat or sun. haven't established contact w/ jim or doug/ think folks are doing heavy duty online stuff.

6.22.5.

from card i did for baby shower.

6.21.5

new grandchild arrived yesterday. details sketchy but mother and new daughter doing fine. seven pounds, red hair. not totally clear on name at this point. congratulations to eli, melissa, and sister lily. i'll be leaving wed. morning to say hello to beautiful new person.

6.20.5

stayed home and worked all day yesterday, several cards and prints the result. at 4PM got out of the house and attended laurel's salon. great potluck.

tomorrow i will continue the list of words, memes, phrases the junta is so skillfully using to keep control of us all. "freedom of expression" might be a good one to look into.

but today i want to talk about my right hand which has become a real problem. i have a brace that i wear. immobilization seems to be the only cure. all agree to that. but i keep pushing it, not wearing the thing, and playing the piano or whatever to see if it's doable. it ain't.

but the last few days an interesting and possibly helpful change has bubbled up from somewhere. goes like this:

when i first started using a mouse way back when, i used my left hand. i write, draw and paint left-handed.

but in cubeland this became a problem. everybody's computer i would often have to use or fix was right-handed. eventually i decided to switch and have moused with my right hand for maybe 15 years.

so i'm going to switch again, back to my left hand. today. right now. i'll let you know how it goes, and no comments on emotional limbic dyslexia please.

6.19.5

picture i made for my father's day card. taken from the front deck of his house in prescott az. on a clear day you can see the san francisco peaks, snowcapped most of the year.

as a father i can say this: everyday is father's day.

6.18.5

yesterday i posted about the difference between the wars between nation states and today's war between a nation state and a noun ("terror"). wars change over time. for instance at the battle of waterloo in 1815, the europeans fought while the peasants continued their agricultural doings in the surrounding countryside.

my point is that the "war on terror" is terrible strategy because our side is still thinking nation against nation. obsolete. but the phrase is good PR, good enough to fool most of us most of the time.

there is a second confabulation that the republicans have been using a long time, even some of the "real" republicans and not just today's junta. it goes:

criticize war strategy and purpose
=holding the troops guilty

this one has been around since viet-nam and is a mind blower. how can a bunch of grunts be equated with power mongers in $2k suits who don't answer their own telephone. the troops are us.

to comment or critique the "war" in no way demeans the soldiers who are fighting it. my take on how this is perceived as true dates back to WWII and the subsequent trials where it was established that being ordered to be a criminal is not a legal defense. the republicans took it and ran with it during 'nam, setting up a "straw man" argument. you think the war is bad, check out the people fighting it.

it's like saying if you think there were shenanigans going on at Enron, you are attacking as guilty all of the worker-bees who lost their jobs and pensions.

6.17.5

on an extended media-fast, i am still picking up a hopeful slow shift in the feelings of the hoi polloi or joe six-pack concerning the junta in power.

maybe the downing street memo was the catalyst. i think that the real republicans, most of whom i have little in common with, have been feeling more and more uncomfortable as the invisible coup-d'etat the populace chose not to see has repeatedly outdone itself. note that i said "feeling", not realizing.

still, the stress we accept in day to day life has a lot to do with these feelings. and people are beginning to realize this.

so maybe the fundamental, basic underlying flaw in the "war against terror" is floating to the top of the noise.

it is simply this:

"terror" is a strategy of war, not an opponent. reminiscent of "war against drugs" or "war against fat", it is a war between a nation state with a government and military against a catch-phrase.

how does such a war end? do both parties meet and sign papers? is there an armistice? a parade down madison avenue?

or, like past "wars" against sin, or the wars in 1984, is it over only when the nation-state declares "terror" has been vanquished.

the mismatch between this kind of war and traditional war is in my humble opinion an anachronistic, obsolete response to 9/11. an example of the junta's finesse with language, but one that is slowly unraveling.

6.16.5

one of those nice day's george and i were talking about the other week. it's 4 in the afternoon and i've been sitting here for most of the day. solved a few problems, that was fun. pushed a few projects a little further. when i finish typing this i will do what i've been putting off for a couple of weeks now and clean up the back room,

6.15.5

made this morning. dreamwindow i guess.

so far been playing catchup this morning, got 2 prints done, one left to finish tomorrow. oh yeah, put new strings on guitar.

6.14.5

today's picture started life as a pencil and piece of "empty" paper this morning.

highlight of yesterday was a chunk of time working on color landscape prints and then meeting doug at the reitzle's. absolutely beautiful day. we sat outside and did what we do, which included watching a fast dog.

6.13.5

pleasant & unusual sunday.

finished one print in the AM, am happy with it. have two more i' working on. a few days left to complete it.

doug b. dropped by on his way to and from his hideout in yazoo county. then ninian dropped by, heading to work mon morning down east from bluff mountain old timey music festival. as usual the high point of the day was conversation.

i may be wrong, but it seems to me that there is a narrow demographic out there (of which i am one) who because of historical reasons enjoy the rare afternoon of talking. this seems to link back to the bad old days of coffee houses and conversation as an art form, metaphysical and meaningful but without pulling the load of contemporary social stylistics, which all too often devolve into clicheland.

got a kick out of listening to bill hick's latest CD, especially enjoyed song including his helping kerouac pull car out of a ditch. we still remember that week, sort of. a story that reverberates in so many ways today it may be beyond telling.

didn't sleep much last night and "coast to coast" slithered in and out of my consciousness all night long. something i learned: phoenix is the hot spot today of the UFO contingent, largely because of last week's video of lights in the sky. they are expecting first contact anyday now, so to speak.
Amazing UFO Footage, Phoenix
"right in the sky above the mountain appeared a huge formation of lights... So we decided to stop and try to get them on video"

it's noon, gotta move on.

here is a site that i haven't gotten into much but promises a lot: live concert recordings offered with the musicians blessing:
Internet Archive: Live Music Archive

6.12.5

spent the day yesterday.

and enjoyed it.

the morning was taken up talking on the fone to sister jane and dad. the afternoon on a couple of print projects. i was in extreme slow mode and it took me forever to fix a few simple glitches.

at 4 i was downtown sitting at a table with a group of bloggers from the paris of the south. sympatico bunch, various backgrounds and agendas. beautiful day, sitting outside, talking about this and that.
=====>"Blogs representing at the first ever Asheville Bloggers Summit":

these were the first folks i have ever met face to face that blogged. just that fact was a surprise to me when i realized it. some had started a blog with a goal in mind, some like myself just to see what would happen. quite a few with a political bent, not surprising in this age of the american oligarchy in full swing. i'll add links soon.

the idea of group blogs surfaced again and again, on which has always appealed to me. let a thousand flowers bloom. it's too much for one person to maintain a blog day after day. unless, like this one, you sit down and type off the top of your head. and it's so easy for it to degenerate on your own to self-indulgent self expression like the teen-age blogs ("mom was mean to me today").

one feeling i left with was how much i need to redesign this thing, it's a little bit stale and a shambles at present. of course i've felt this way for awhile. and of course i have quite a few improvements in mind that i might get to someday.

the main evolution of this blog has been away from commentary on the world and towards pictures. this co-evolved with learning watercolor, oils, pencil, and the scads of visuals that i continue to produce for fun. but the image archive is about 2 or 3 years out of date, which must mean i have put up maybe 400 pictures that cannot be found in the archives.

speaking of which i have 2 prints to do by the end of the day, starting pretty much from scratch. at 4 i'll be at unca where will david will have some sort of exhibit of his acrylics opening.

one note: the question i have raised in past posts of what "virtually pain-free" might mean came up in conversation. looking the word "virtual" up this morning, it sure enough is from the same root as "virtue" [ME. possesed of certain physical virtues. fr ML virtualis, fr L. virtu, strength, virtue] (1654). what's the connection between "goodness" and today's usage?

6.9.5

the muse needs amusing
slogged thru more photos for new life book since i last posted. meanwhile keep loading up the front room with piles of "stuff" and going thru it, tossing what i can. as jack says, i am "closing the house", getting ready to depart for parts unknown metaphorically speaking. new insulin pump delivered the other day, waiting for trainer to contact me so i can get into it.

don't have much to comment on today. missed my girlfriend stephanie miller's radio broadcast from aville the paris of the south this morning.

found cd at the library susanne mccorckle sings isiah berlin. sweet. also been listening to billy holiday's decca recordings. they were made late, strings and all.

most of the reading i've been doing is on color theory, so that shows you where my head is at.

the last room i have to evacuate is painting room, should be done soon and i can feel a head of steam building up to paint.

i guess i'll order sony dsc-v3 tomorrow. the g6 fiasco was the result, i think, of no time to figure out i needed USB driver for card reader.

i have a day tomorrow where i don't need to leave the house until 7PM and i'll probably be asleep by then.

i installed a whole bunch of VST filters in vision dsp pro and of course it broke most of the functions. i also installed a couple of standalone loopers. when you bring them up it looks like you're about to fly a 707. lot of complex screen real estate.

i've got new eyes. everything looks far away.

6.8.5

last watercolor i tossed off. this one looks a lot better than the original.

been awhile since i posted and that's probably the way it will be for awhile. no news is good news.

jim and isabell paid a visit. jim and i went on old folks hike saturday which was most pleasant. north slope trail of pisgah national forest. about 5 miles?

it was hot and humid but the trail was leafy and shady and a good walk. driving back we stopped at an ice cream shop where i got the first malted milk shake since i was a teen ager. as good as ever.

saturday night 5 of us went downtown and ate dinner in some upscale tapas bar. as usual i felt like an alien interloper amidst the luxury. but then we walked around town and i got a good whiff of asheville on a summer saturday night. lots of action, street musicians, jugglers, mimes, and young tourists. a theme park for the young. in bed by 10:30.

sunday i got a quick 30 minute walk up sunset mountain before the heat became intolerable. spent the rest of the day in house making order out of chaos. more of the same monday. worked on pictures for new life book. i now have a plan that will help us finish, hope jeff and nan will agree to it.

mon afternoon joined non-dual group for an hour and a half. i'm not sure what we are doing as a group but as always it was a welcome respite.

yesterday went to alexander method physical therapy. the object is to improve my balance which has become a problem.

a lot of time napping the last few days. not depressed, just feeling somehow weird, lack of focus and energy.

this is a state where i do best in a horizontal position semi-conscious. hope it goes away. but it's a good one to do the mundane, vacuuming, throwing away stuff, rearranging work areas, putting in air conditioners, sealing a windshield leak in truck, nothing even remotely transcendental.

one note of interest: friday night i went to bed early, the friday night jazz program playing softly in the background. i was pulled out of this state when i heard a woman singing "thanks for the memories". admittedly was in some kind of hypnogogic maze, but i have never heard anything like it. it was a devotional hymn to God from where i was. i got up and phoned the station to find out who it was, but got no answer. the announcer later let it be known it was Susannah McCorkle ~ Jazz-Pop Vocalist, a name i was unfamiliar with. absolutely magical.

6.2.5

got a phonecall from old friend ludie yesterday. it was good to hear from her and talk.

early this morning, still dark out, i was half listening to "coast-to-coast" on the AM dial. call in show from night people, lots of alien and other strange experiences. half asleep, i was listening to a guy relate a very strange experience he had with an electric light and a glass of water. he and the callers before him all seemed non-wacko, just plain old citizens of the 21st c. so many of their thoughts and stories i would have relegated to the wacko-bin not long ago, but i was thinking how they all seemed to be quite normal today.

the signal began to break up and fade to a quiet cacophony of voices from the airwaves, and i realized that it was early morning light outside. so many things change when light turns dark and vice versa.

so i got up to take antibiotic pill, meaning to return to bed. while i was in the bathroom i heard a very strange extended noise from somewhere, looked in the mirror and thought "!??!!#". then realized it was my kat who had just walked across computer keyboard and the sound i had heard was mac chimes booting up.

weirdness in the air everywhere.

last night i caught a bit on TV about new book arguing that kids today are becoming smarter and more capable by staying glued to video games.
Amazon.com: Books: Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter:
"Johnson shatters the conventional wisdom about pop culture as pabulum, showing how video games, television shows and movies have become increasingly complex."

then this morning's email pointed me in the direction of another book arguing that kids today were being stunted by lack of time spent just hanging out in the woods:
Salon.com Life | Do today's kids have "nature-deficit disorder"?:
"In his new book, 'Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder,' Louv argues that sensationalist media coverage and paranoid parents have literally 'scared children straight out of the woods and fields,' while promoting a litigious culture of fear that favors 'safe' regimented sports over imaginative play."

personally i think the first book is convincing in arguing that cyberkids will grow up to be more successful when it comes to sitting in a wired up cubicle. but the second book is talking about a much wider, bigger, and more important problem that affects us all.

6.1.5

tip of the hat to tharpa who forwarded this timely piece...i don't know who wrote it, and i'm not going to think about it.

How my Thinking Got Out of Control

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone - "to relax," I told myself, but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid old friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, and hang out with thinking buddies. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?" Things weren't going so great at home either. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.

I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me in. He said, "Morris, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job." This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking, I'm hooked..." "I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"

"But Honey, surely it's not that serious." "It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors, and college professors don't make much money, so if you keep on thinking we won't have any money!" "That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, and she began to cry. I'd had enough. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche, with NPR on the radio. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors... they didn't open. The library was closed. To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous (TA) poster.

Which is why I am what I am today; a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I also avoid people who think. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed... easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. Some people tell me that someday I'll be able, perhaps, to think again socially. I think not.

5.31.5

this is one of the first watercolors i ever did, maybe at my cousin bob's ranch in colorado. there is so much i don't remember.

i'm really in a funk lately, can't seem to concentrate much. maybe it's the antibiotics i'm still taking. bad vibes.

so i'm going to leave this one up for awhile. i'll post again when i have something to say.

there is big change around the corner, i can feel it.

the gangsters that have kidnapped the government are the least of it.

saw a bumper sticker i liked today:

"speak your mind even if your voice shakes"

5.30.5

what....

5.30.5

piece of a picture that is 5 years old, at least that's the time stamp on the file.

haven't seen or talked to a soul this holiday. depressing. i feel like busting outa here. i feel like i'm done with this place and time.

big deal.

so what else is new? well, i'm throwing stuff out like crazy: clothes, cassette tapes, papers- lots of papers. cobwebs. dreams. books. cardboard boxes.

finally fixed whatever was keeping me from listening to wilber's conversations with the frothy edge 2 per-cent. but i'm not very into it, maybe was 20 years ago but i didn't know anything then about it. i was too frothy.

snippet from email today:

"...we are collectively discovering what "dharma in the West" really looks like. He goes on to explain that for the first generation of Western teachers, the cultural disjuncture between their Eastern training and Western heritage was so intense that perhaps 70% of them crashed and burned, to one degree or another."

not to mention their students.

5.27.5

pencil drawing i did somewhere last week.

while i was in the flatlands i was bit by a tick, looked like ordinary dog tick to me. by the time i got back to the mountains it did not look good, went to doc, thank god for antibiotics. haven't felt normal since, hope i'm coming around.

i spent a lot of time in the woods many years ago, deep woods, deep summer, it used to amuse me how friends from NYC would spook at the critters. never bothered me. now i walk across a suburban lawn and end up taking a ten day course of strong antibiotics.

if i were someone else i think i would go into the study of what's up with the lowly tick. i know i am older and my immune system is a little haywire, but there has been a massive change in their world- and ours.

so i'm feeling poorly and stopped at the library to pick up some light reading. end up with the cobra event by preston, the guy who wrote the hot zone. creepy book about epidemics.

not a bad read though.

5.26.5

i am feeling not so hot, on antibiotics and sleeping a lot. can't get into this posting biz at the moment.

so...

guess who wrote this:

"circumstances never repeat themselves...to do it, you've got to have power and dominion over the spirits. i had done it once, and once was enough."

5.24.5

pencil drawing of my son's family home i drew on recent visit. it's about three miles from a cabin various friends and i lived almost 40 years ago. it was a time and place that still reverberates here and there.

i had a rushed but pleasant visit. children and grandchildren doing well, acquiring wisdom as they wonder through the years.

even tho change is constant, or maybe because it is constant, consistency changes. i found myself driving down roads, mostly 2 lane back roads, where it would dawn on me that i'd been there before, same road, same sunny day, different world.



i have a lot of catching up to do here, but think i will take a day or two of rest. if there is such a thing.

"Recalling former President Richard Nixon's failed attempt to cut the funding for public broadcasting in the early 1970s, Moyers said, 'I always knew that Nixon would be back -- again and again. I just didn't know that this time he would ask to be the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.'"
Bill Moyers Fights Back

neil young:
"'Charming and moving... very likely the peak of his career thus far. One must hand it to Young for his ambitious achievement. Greendale grows richer the more one visits it. HALLELUJAH FOR A TRULY INDEPENDENT FILM!'"
Shakey Pictures

5.22.5

suddenly i am in a new space, called chapel hill. visitng my children and grand children all of whom have got their heads on straight in a warped and wierd world. i'm fine had a pleasant visit w/ jim and right now am going mto draw a picture.

5.18.5

modern peasant will be offline for a few days due to mental health maintenance. as you can see from the above, the massive parallel artificial intuition modules need upgrading, and the visionary algorithm unit is acting kind of funny.

so we will be dead floating in hyperspace so to speak for a few days. meanwhile you might want to take a look at some asheville bloggers, which is where i found these links:

Tools or Actions in Photoshop That Would Prove Useful at Various Stages of a Relationship.:
a relationship with a human, i might add.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall:
the latest snapshot of a modern institution, justice, dying a lingering death:
"A proposed questionnaire would ask prospective jurors to disclose their political party, union membership, whether they've ever had a bumper sticker on their car and what it said, what Web logs they read and whether they ever watch TV shows such as 'West Wing,' CNN's 'Crossfire,' MSNBC's 'Hardball with Chris Matthews,' and 'The McLaughlin Group,' which mostly runs on public television stations."

this from mr. moyer's, bless his heart, who still seems to think that "truth" has a place in the world humans have made:
Democracy Now! | Bill Moyers Responds to CPB's Tomlinson Charges of Liberal Bias: "We Were Getting it Right, But Not Right Wing"

award for the most profound statement of the week:
Idelle Packer >> Body Sense, Inc.:
"'Change involves carrying out an activity against the habit of life.'"

5.17.5

above is from a random snapshot i took somewhere. of course i played around with it.

monday was a marathon. got canon G6 shipped back, sent new CD to old friend michele, worked until 2 on new life book. then drove to unca to deliver oil painting for end of class.

had a chance to ease back and talk to gloria, the instructer and a few fellow students. pleasant interlude. then back here and worked on book photos until evening, when i began to cleanup house.

remember when, a few years ago, the word on the web was content was king? still is, but today i think we are dimly realizing that content without personal face-to-face time can be very noisy. it's handy and frustrating, but in no way similar to the personal discourse that can enhance the meaning of life. notice i did not say supply the entire meaning, just enhance it a bit. when was the last time something you ran across on the web changed your life? turn off your computer right now and go outside and walk a few miles.

when you decide not to do this, check this site out: apparently there is a move stemming from this and related sites of asheville bloggers to join forces and something creative and fun.
Scrutiny Hooligans: You've Got to Get Behind the Mule

5.15.5

from a pencil drawing done during digital photography SIG friday. as an icon for today, it looks about right.

been reading peter fenner on the web:
Radiant Mind | Buddhist psychology and nondual therapy: "The conditioned mind is the mind that thinks, gets confused, has preferences and experiences pleasure and pain.

The unconditioned mind is pure, unlimited and beyond all ego-identification.

The radiant mind arises when the unconditioned mind radiates through the totality of our conditioned existence, bringing peace, wisdom and love to everything we experience.

Most of us live our lives knowing only the conditioned mind. We have a very limited, or even no, access to the unconditioned mind."

what i read last night was a good push towards realizing that listing what i did on this that and the other project on this site is not very useful to anyone but me, and even then it can be a destructive 21st c. habit, occluding other happenings. of course for me it's kind of a relief, i'm scattered too thin.

5.14.5

icon for the day. think i'll walk very slowly and carefully. i might need a white cane.

flurry of obligatory times, places and tasks blew me away this week. and it's not over.

i don't do well in the 24/7 mode. the thrill is gone.

but it's interesting to think that it's said to be the prevailing way of life, post-enlightment (speaking historically, not personally.)

maybe 30 years ago jeremy rifkin wrote time wars, very underestimated book IMHO. the uses of one's time on earth are being whittled away by the culture. fewer conventional options open.

i think this narrowing of choices creates a counter-trend, a growing number of seekers, gurus, practices and talk about "transformation".

5.13.5

can you believe it? i'm still finding watercolors usable for 8X10 prints, not to mention smaller prints for notecards. the above i found yesterday and it prints out beautifully.

started the day with a physical therapist appt at 8 AM. i seem to be losing my balance - physical , not mental, of course - a bit too often.

then spent a couple of hours placing photographs in quark file of new life book. also spent some time seeing if i could use PC notebook to download files from USB compact flash chip in canon g6. i could, but it was more of a stunt than a workable procedure. so tomorrow the camera goes back.

in an hour i'm attending digital photograhy special interest group at UNCA. the subject: histograms. someone there might have a clue as to solving this OS 9 problem with the newer canon software, but i think i already know the answer.

don't worry, be happy.

5.12.5

what's new? still wrestling hooking up canon g6 to apple g4 usb.

applied damar varnish to my first two oil paintings. they are supposed to dry for 6 months or a year before this is done.

it appears the old ken wilber group might reform to experience some of peter pfener's work. cool.

did the above from a snapshot.

do i have anything important to say? not today.

[later}...ooooh, it doesn't look so good on the digital camera front. and i'd really like to turn bhau's book around in the next couple of days.

5.11.5

yesterday was loaded with fresh cold air, afternoon thunder rumbling in the distance, the patter of rain. i had a full day, beginnign with book group meet. this is always a pleasure talking with well read folks, sharp too,. Lowell showed up from wherever he's been this winter - Costa Rica?

then left early for doc's appt which i made. it was a more successful than yesterday's visit when i showed up a day early. stopped at grocery store on way back, but was awake enough to cut it short when my vision acted up, figuring i was probably low glucose, got home, and i was.

jumped into finishing class project, an oil landscape, which includes an arched wooden bridge i finally started. really messed up perspective to a bothersome degree. this afternoon will be last on location session, finished the day fooling with digital camera whose software won't run on OS9.x. a few elementary workarounds didn't go, so it's up to canon now or return camera.

somebody drove back to asheville w/ new life mss marked up. when i get it i'll have to roll, typical wait and hurry up job. last night i recorded dobro and fooled with sound. i bussed the track to 2 other tracks, copied it and bussed it to 2 more. then i shifted the first @ 300ms later than the second, filtered and panned the different tracks. Sounds ok and i'm going to use it for flash sountrack.

and resequenced last CD.

being busy is such fun. and at times such spirit-killing drudgery. playfulness makes the difference.

5.9.5

another rescued watercolor reject. i don't remember when i fell into this business of taking unsuccessful watercolors to see what could be done with them. but it has been educational. and some of them make beautiful prints. live and learn.

had a strange episode last night. i went to the gray eagle thinking i had gone to high school with one of the musicians, tim o'brien. i got a couple of notes to him in the green room, thinking we could swap war stories since i had not seen him since 55 or 56.

but it wasn't him.

so now i am more confused than usual.

memory is a trickster. sometime this week i'm going to track down what successful musician i was thinking about.

i stayed for most of the first set, full house, pretty good picking and great harmonies.

i stopped at friends barbara and george on the way back home and had a pleasant interlude.

earlier in the day i drove to botanical gardens with oil painting and took a pencil and drew on it. details of an arched bridge over a creek that i'll try to fake here at home. the painting will be hung a week from today and it is by no means finished.

gotta go to doc's appt, more later.

[later]--> made it to appt w/ doctor. but it is for tomorrow, not today. (my) memory really is a trickster and working overtime. then i missed turn on the way back.

so i believe i will move very slowly for the rest of the day.

found out what i was confused about at concert last night.tim rose was who i went to high school with, not tim o'brien. i think i have rambled on here about the time he took me to see flatt and scruggs inside the martha white big top tent. we were in high school and eisenhower was president. i am saddened to find out he passed on a few years back. i guess there are worse things than a flakey memorie.

5.8.5

i'm having a bit of fun seeing if i can salvage some watercolor rejects, this one was at the bottom of the barrel.

took a walk with hiking group yesterday. pisgah forest. luck enough to ride back on parkway. at the higher elevations there is still time to get spring photos, probably head back that way this week.

working my way out of a couple of months real isolation. many days when i did not go out the door even once. very productive period, time to back off and get loose now. going to a concert tonight at the gray eagle, mostly to see tim o'brien who i haven't seen since we went to george washington high in alexandria va.

if you need a reminder of when and where we live check this out:
The Ed Schultz Show

5.6.5

here it is, the icon of the day. words are useless to describe it. in case you are not fluent in limbic pataphysics, it's been great so far.

the rest of the day is kleen-up time. i've already found a forearm brace that dr. windy informed me i probably should wear the rest of my life unless i need to take it off to play music or paint.

been slowly getting digital camera up and running.

and i'll do the same with a couple of window AC units. the sun has come back from wherever it has been, and rays are bouncing around like lost puppies.

5.5.5

yesterday lasted from 5:30AM to 3AM. most of that time i was doing what most of us do nowadays, running from deadline to appt to deadline to appt to class etc.

the last scheduled event of the day was being picked up by my friend janice for a delightful visit with some like minds out in the country.

i got home around midnight and then had to change insulin pump cartridge etc.

i turned on TV and watched some late night stuff for the first time in a long while.

what i saw was jimmy kimmel (i think that is his name) late night talk show or whatever we call these things these days. i caught the tail end of the show, which to my astonishment featured a funky jazz group playing low down and dirty while a stripper romped around, ending up in tassels and very small panties. she seemed to be able to vibrate any body parts on demand.

then some sort of backpacker travel show featuring india. the travelers were young british men and woman talking to the camera about where to find $3 a night lodging and such. but the camera work was out of sight. really stunning, covering a lot of disparate parts of that large country. i watched the whole thing. i know regrets are not in fashion today, but it made me really regret that i did not spend a lot of time in india back when i still had my walkin shoes.

then went to bed with the radio on and turned down low. a whole lot about the coming war with iran. that's what the airwaves said.

woke up this morning to hear a bible-belt preacher. he was pretty good. the only thing i can remember him saying was "zero with the rim rubbed away". a striking image.

just got back from dentist, miss kitty is in my lap purring up a storm, it's a tad raw outside.

the rest of the day will be dedicated to recovery.

i almost forgot: one of the night voices said watch out for a big event in the next 20 days. i think he actually said "i can say no more".

5.4.5

went to the last "explorations of consciousness" class yesterday. a very nice in the best sense of the word biologist talked of his theory of what is what. this from a book he wrote that i guess is circulating in mss. form.

his theory seemed to be that consciousness - or the "ego" which he defines somewhat differently than the common usage - is the result of a collision between the culture, starting out with mommy and daddy - and the "true self" which he likens to the nucleus of a cell in that it gives the appropriate instructions to the ego which is the cell, the cell wall being the interface between it and the outer world.

the title of the book is the recovery of the true self. from what i could tell i would have some serious quibbles with his description of conscious life, but the title describes what i bet half of the false selves hanging out today are thinking about. in asheville maybe 80%.

when i got home about 3 i ate lunch, layed down for a minute, and had the most delightful nap i've had in a long spell. deep sleep and then i woke up, not groggy but ready for anything, full of energy. so i worked on painting for class today. this morning i see i really screwed it up. so this morning i'm going to paint out a tree and hope it's will dry enough to work on this afternoon in plain old air, ie on location.

after 8 weeks taking spring courses at the center for creative retirement (UNCA) i don't know what to think about it. it is a great resource, much activity.

but the make up of the members is pretty monolithic: pre-baby boomers, middle class and up. behind the patina of energetic well dressed oldsters you can sometimes get a whiff of the basket-weaving mode, give them something to do.

more than anything i think it is an affinity group. a place to gather, eat lunch, talk. think about it: a large body of folks, most all uprooted and moved here for the last act, strangers to the disappearing local hillbilly ethos. i think in the near future there will be an increasing need for something like this as people end up stranded on the island of old age, dislocated in a time when isolation prevails.

of course like any group who all seem cut from the same experiences and therefore identical in outlook, there are a good number of vital interesting folks - like myself.

jeff and nan have been busy in myrtle beach working on new life book, we talk most every day and i am being deluged with photos to replace photos (electronic files, not the photos themselves). right now i am totally confused as to what goes where, but will figure it out tomorrow.

CNN.com - E-mails�'hurt IQ more than pot' - Apr 22, 2005: "Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows."

Good Morning Silicon Valley: "The last remaining doubt that corporate America is utterly incapable of guarding sensitive data disappeared into the Internet's thriving black market in Social Security numbers on Monday."

Macworld UK - Apple's Tiger leaves Microsoft in the dust: "Apple's Tiger leaves Microsoft in the dust."

Macworld UK - Apple becoming hacker target: "Apple becoming hacker target"

5.2.5

the week has started. and on not so good a note. woke up this morning w/ BG - blood glucose - in the 600s. and i traded out 2 infusion sets yesterday because there seemed like an occlusion was keeping the pump from performing correctly. i'm getting ready to replace all plumbing, something ain't right.

then a few moments ago my phone stopped working. i replaced phones, cables and that stuff, still no dial tone. and DSL is coming thru fine.

i did manage to come up with a signature thingy and printed out a few cards with it. also got it plugged into back label, so i'm ready for some physical cutting and pasting.

except i have doctor's appt. and 2:45.

today we are all trouble-shooters.

5.1.5

about 20 - 25 years ago i lived with my family in the mountains west of here. during those years i got to asheville maybe 3 times, it was the big city. some of those visits were on mayday. it was on one of those visits that i saw the first maypole in action that i'd ever seen. every since then i've associated this day with this area.

maybe i am picking up on whatever vortex has since blown in a plethora of neo-pagans, aura technicians, sufi-meisters, edgar cayce aficionados, dog therapists and other assorted 21st c. seekers, not to mention artists and musicians. check here to see what i think i mean:
Asheville, NC New Age Mecca

4.30.5

another watercolor from the lost and found. probably belongs as permanently "lost", but as you know i have a tendency to put it all up, the good the bad the ugly.

speaking of which, the image archive is about 2 years out of date. i don't know how many visuals i've put up in the last 2 years, but when and if i finish what's on my plate at present i'm going to include in the image archive a whole lot more of my work.

today, among other things i'm ordering canon g6 7+MP. this will open the door to a whole nother layer of new stuff that i don't have the time to do....

[later] blogger seems to be flakey today. i get a broken pipe when i try to post. if you are reading this i got past it.

[later still] ok i got this up by saving it first as a draft, then publishing it.

just one more occasion where ambiguity and "thinking outside the box" prove to be essential, not optional. besides i lost the box.

as long as i am bouncing around, might as well ramble a bit. i'm reading two essays on analytical psychology by jung. the volume has been laying around for years and i never read it.

my feeling about jung is that even though he was determined to be "scientific" and not a misunderstood artist, he never came up with a hard and fast description of how things work for us humans. had he done so i think his work would be much less valid.

what he did do is meander around the unknowable, not the unknown, but that which is incapable of being "known", pretty convincingly arguing that even so, it affects our world and our lives.

4.29.5

above is 2nd version of watercolor below. i just couldn't leave it alone. but now i will because i don't think i can use it for the miniature prints i want to use on notecards.

one of the habits i have acquired is finishing each painting i start, even if it is a disaster. above is example. great learning experience but it ca, of course, be a waste of time.

i now have 15 ok miniature prints and will shop them around town next week. meanwhile will get together a second series called "postcards from nowhere" which will be a giggle but who knows these days, people might buy them.

or not.

meanwhile i will be finishing landscape oil. another great learning experience.

in case you don't have something to fret about - highly unlikely - check this out:
F-Secure Computer Virus Information Pages: Googkle: "F-Secure staff has found a malicious website that utilizes a spelling error when typing the name of the popular search engine - 'Google.com'. If a user opens a malicious website, his/her computer gets hijacked - a lot of different malware gets automatically downloaded and installed: trojan droppers, trojan downloaders, backdoors, a proxy trojan and a spying trojan. Also a few adware-related files are installed.

The name of the malicious website is 'Googkle.com'. PLEASE DO NOT GO TO THIS WEBSITE! Otherwise your computer will get infected! We have reported the case to the authorities."

4.28.5

another watercolor i found in the reject pile. i promise i won't put anymore up. i thought i could maybe bring it up to snuff for notecard/postcard series but looking at it i don't think so.

still have the noise machine turned down as low as i can get it. you can't turn it off. so i'm not up on the no longer fascinating dance of the sound bytes.

but i do recall that hitler came to power procedurally. and the first group he went after was the judiciary.

4.27.5

another watercolor i found. it goes into the great notecard postcard machine. found it in a box where i keep the duds and sprinkled cyberdust on it.

most rushed day i have had in a long time. the new life book has suddenly become an urgent affair, as these things do, and i spent the morning talking to jeff and nan in myrtle beach about various strategies. then rush into town to the art supply store i like which is, unfortunately the furthest away. then back to take "sacred geometry" class which Started 30 minutes and two weeks earlier than i thought. then to botanical gardens to paint. i did the zen thing, first mark is the best mark, i might finish it in time.

isn't that an interesting phrase, in time?

4.26.5

i found this watercolor i did a while back and added to the famous notecard project. looks pretty good on my monitor.

worked all day yesterday on a couple of projects. finally had sense enough to go outside, perfect spring day. took a load of cardboard to the recycle bin. i had loaded all my oil painting gear with the idea of going to the botanical gardens to work on class oil painting. i did get there, but didn't do anything but sit and draw scene, dark and light, values, and tree branches which will be interesting to paint.

went to "consciousness" class this morning, lecturer talked about meditation. not much new. i mentally disagreed with him when he talked about "stopping the monkey mind", i think it more involves letting it be the monkey mind and not identifying with it.

he had some interesting things to say about the "witness" and how you could become the witness (of your own body/mind). again i differ a little. there is always another witness behind the witness, all the way up and all the way down.

like the beatles said:

"and though she feels like she's in a play
she is anyway".

4.25.5

another telegram from the unconscious, void, formless into form, the unknowable. wherever it is it is not on the map.

this image originated on my current NC driver's license.

just a blip.

blipping.

4.24.5

now that i have this picture up, it looks unfinished. back to the bit board.

peeked out of the window early this morning and it was snowing. but not for long.

the usual obscure projects. been circling the vacuum cleaner, closer and closer.

fell asleep for a bit after lunch. in a chair. haven't done that for a while.

the existence of art is meaningful. the content may be whatever, but the fact that a human creates brings meaning into existence. and it does so right now. always now.

now is always new. now is always. now is.

but really it's an hour later now, and i hope i just made a fix that allows you to see this page.

now rocks.

4.23.5

pic was drawn yesterday, sprinkled with magic dust this morning.

went to exhibit opening yesterday with friend k. art with a capital "A", appeared to be the work of collage indoctrinated artists. one artist specialized in combining text with visuals, textures (used coffee filters). this combination is of great interest to me as most of my old friends can attest to. the other artist used bee's wax for an interesting patina, and wax is on my list of endless things to look into.

now here are some quotes i ran into the other day that sparked my interest. i did not know why, but i think it was because of the last item from today's news.

Quote Details: Hermann Hesse: When dealing with the... - The Quotations Page: "When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
Hermann Hesse
Swiss (German-born) author (1877 - 1962)"

Quote Details: Friedrich Nietzsche: Insanity in individuals is... - The Quotations Page: "Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche
German philosopher (1844 - 1900)"

Quote Details: Edgar Allan Poe: Those who dream by... - The Quotations Page: "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Edgar Allan Poe, 'Eleonora'
US short story author, editor, & poet (1809 - 1849)"

if these quotes seem a bit much, check this link out:

ContraCostaTimes.com | 04/22/2005 | As e-hunting becomes reality, state Senate moves to ban it: "SACRAMENTO - The state Senate voted Thursday to bar state hunters from remotely killing animals using a computer and an Internet connection."

4.22.5

got out the old repedigraph last night, and the above is the result.

got this from "good morning silicon valley" news letter. i am very interested in this. how about you?

TERM OF THE WEEK: wiki

(n.) A collaborative Web site comprised of the perpetual collective work of
many authors. Similar to a blog in structure and logic, a wiki allows
anyone to edit, delete, or modify content that has been placed on the Web
site using a browser interface, including the work of previous authors. In
contrast, a blog, typically authored by an individual, does not allow
visitors to change the original posted material, only add comments to the
original content. The term wiki refers to either the Web site or the
software used to create the site.

Wiki wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian. The first wiki was created by Ward
Cunnigham in 1995.

4.21.5

it's one of those extreme days. don't know what else to call it. i have the first of 3 dental appointments at 11:30 which is the beginning of 1) reconstructed teeth or 2) false teeth. arrrrgh.

but to counterbalance this i received this email this morning so everything is cool.

"You have now been approved to collect a total payment sum of USD$970,000.00 (NINE HUNDRED AND SEVEN THOUSAND US DOLLARS ONLY) attaches to file REF NO: CSI/8813/6329-05. We know it will be of a surprise to have received such a notification message due to the fact that you did not purchase any lottery ticket from us and the high rate of internet scam, but be informed here that this is a free promotional/test program from us as a way of introducing our software services and also in promoting the benefit of the Internet usage."

4.20.5

testing goddammit.

4.20.5

i've got pictures running riot through my head. spent yesterday cleaning up & finessing watercolor scans, reducing and unsharp masking for mounting on note cards.

then went back through hi-res scans and photoshop creations to find, reduce, mess with resolution and color, and include in poetry book. up till now i had 72 dpi place holders.

both of these projects are returning to life. next step with note cards is to figure out what i want to design and say on back label. then assemble what is called make-ready in graphic arts, ie an rigid assembly which positions notecard and photoprint for permanent mounting.

you probably suspect that i write the above more for me than you. and you're right. now i have a faint glimmer of what to do next.

jeff w. from north myrtle beach phoned this morning, we're cranking up again on new life book. task here is to come up with least confusing way to incorporate corrections into mss. i'll email balaji in india and see if he uses PDF workflow which could save much to-and-froing from quark to acrobat.

but what about the world and it's problems?

i feel them but have nothing to say at this time about it. Intuitively i feel it might be better for us all if noone said anything about the delirium of current events.

if you checked this site and didn't see anything, i put a stop on a post this morning and i guess messed things up more than i expected, be right back.

4.18.5

from a photo i took awhile back at dr. r's place.

yesterday was different. instead of the usual "sunday bath" (wallace stevens), which in my case would have been the Friend's meeting at 10 and the Baba meeting at 4, i hung out and painted. setup outside in the backyard and worked on oil for class.

what i'm painting is a landscape from the botanical gardens down the road. we go to the same place each week and paint from life.

this is a real learning experience for me. for one thing my "portability" increases with each week as i figure out what i really need to take.

anyway the color green... hasn't worked for me yet. so saturday night i got books out and followed some recipes for green. and yesterday tried easing them into painting outside. hung out a little with young folks upstairs who introduced me to some kind of "golf" played with heavy frisbees.

it was that kind of day.

4,17,5

another one from old notebook. icon for the day but i never know what that means.

inner weather report. feel like i'm in a rut. can't start the day without pulling some picture out of air and usually just keep on working all day. as long as i don't have to go outside. which is especially weird because the outside is beautiful right now.

4.16.5

picture above from watercolor in progress. this version went pretty fast.

on my way to pharmacy and to get truck inspected.

i'm painting an oil for class and have really collided with the "green problem". (my own term - hope somebody goggles it.

more on the way. . .

{later} just stunningly beautiful and i haven't been outside. i've printed a hell of a lot of small watercolor prints though, and am working on a recipe from Color Mixing Van Wyk Way to figure out green.

4.15.5

grabbed the above ink drawing out of old sketchbook.

the word of the week is "peak", as in "peak oil". this stuff is scary.
Boing Boing: Peak oil article in Rolling Stone
"James Howard Kunstler's piece in Rolling Stone, called 'The Long Emergency,' argues that the US hit its peak decades ago."

moore's law is that every 2 years the number of transister's per area of integrated circuit (chip) will double. but... and i think this is a good sign, that may be over:
Techworld.com - Moore's Law is dead, says Gordon Moore
"Forty years after the publication of his law, which states that transistor density on integrated circuits doubles about every two years, Moore said this morning: 'It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens."

uh-oh. more scarry stuff:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Bogus blogs snare fresh victims
"Now it estimates that there could be more than 200 bogus blogs in existence that are being used to attack net users"

4.14.5

was just flipping through Mountain Xpress, asheville's ad drenched tabloid. on page 10, left hand page, there is an ad that says "strive not to drive." on the right hand page 11 there is an ad that says "think. feel. drive."

i seem to be drifting into working with photos again. grabbed this this morning and made it be what you see.

still trying to work out how to get pdf files from quark 5. i've done it before, but must be forgetting something. in desperate times desperate measures, so i got out the manual.

weather is beautiful this morning. saw hand doctor this am, it's cfm arthritis but doing ok.

i feel the need to make some reasonable commentary on the state of whatever, so here it is: i noticed on the noise machine the other night that they are selling some nostrum that is "virtually pain-free". something about this phrase sets off alarms that i can't quite make out.

is it because the extension of this could - & will in my opinion - become "virtually happy" or "virtually graceful"?

and virtually all for sale.

4.13.5

from a snapshot of travis, taken in my place before the earth cooled.

this was during the - gulp - sixties, the time i grew up, down and sideways.

all of us - and there are many - who were inhabitants of the chemical ghetto - and the mansion on the hill - during that time are past questioning what happened. whatever it was you won't find it in the mainstream press. or the alternative press. or radio, TV, etc.

don't know if it happens to every modern generation, but it is appalling to see your youth turned into a global cartoon.

this link contains pointers to a lot of sites with down to earth news about what is really - more or less - happening right now:
CamWorld: Thinking Outside the Box
"all of the various sites I visit on a regular basis to gather up-to-the-minute news and emerging memes. Below is a short list:"

4.11.5

old oil dry enough to scan.

due for dental appt. at 2. apprehensive.

i've spent about a day trying to get quark 5 poetry book into pdf format. done this lots in the past but the eternal present seems to have changed things. no go so far.

more words here later in the day.

more words later in the day

took a short nap after typing the above. raced to the dentist when i woke. gums are in worse shape than i realized. good dentist, good front office, in a few weeks i'll know whether to start shopping for some choppers - with an iPod built in.

continue ti wrestle withe pdf creation.

as far as the world beyond my nose:

4.10.5

backyard. doing a large version of this picture.son eli, melissa and lily's.

new wilber, readable:

Ken Wilber Online: Foreword to The Common Heart: An Experience of Inter-Religious Dialogue
"Studies in developmental psychology over the last few decades show that individuals tend to undergo an unmistakable trajectory of human growth and development, from pre-conventional stages to conventional stages to post-conventional, or from pre-rational to rational to trans-rational, or from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric. Without pigeonholing anybody or any tradition"

4.9.5

today's cyberdoodle.

now that that's done i'm going to clean the clutter around here.

[much later:]

been another one. today much to my surprise i noticed i had enough music for a new CD. and most of it was done the last 2 weeks when i honestly felt like i was getting nowhere fast.

then i printed out a black and white copy of poetry book to proof.

what i wonder is this fascination with creativity another addiction?

looked for quotes on creation earlier today. here's some i found:


Quote Details: Robert A. Baker:
More than ever, the... - The Quotations Page: "More than ever, the creation of the ridiculous is almost impossible because of the competition it receives from reality.


Quote Details: Vida D. Scudder:
Creation is a better... - The Quotations Page: "Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.
Vida D. Scudder"
Robert A. Baker"


Quote Details: Carl Jung:
The creation of something... - The Quotations Page: "The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Carl Jung"


Quote Details: Stephen Nachmanovitch:
The noun of self... - The Quotations Page: "The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.
Stephen Nachmanovitch"

4.8.5

i was really dragging yesterday. went thru the whole day in a fog, a dense fog. this is very different than in a mist by beiderbeck.

but 13 hours of uninterupted sleep seems to have changed things. i even remember the dream i had which was a visit to something like the exploritorium in san francisco - which i've never visited. this was a handmade non plastic venue where nothing was as it seems. full of rooms vaguly resembling the rooms in the "real" world, but everything was hand made, full of natural textures, almost like fibre art. i spent hours picking things up, like a book, telephone, and realizing that they contained hidden compartments that unfolded to other hidden compartments. it was like living in a soft fabrge easter egg where everything was a soft folding fabrage easter egg. and the place was crawling with parents and their children, all happy to be there.

saw jane fonda last night on the charlie rose show. she has written a memior. i really admired her take on the last third of life. she was right on. she said she has stopped moving laterally, horizontally, and it was time to be concerned with the vertical.

as the infamous baby boomers realize this i believe there may be a cultural shift redefining what old age is for, and it's not going to be living in a gated community hiding out.

now for something about the young: check this out, a sweet downloadable song by a pair of young ladies newly arrived in asheville - the paris of the south.
divineMAGgees : female rock duo : music

i got a real kick out of this. it's a site with short downloadable films, purportedly playable over dial up as well as broadband. the one you want to take a gander at is about an airplane.
IFILM - Short Films: 405

spell checker not working, i'm going to put this up as is.

4.7.5

found this one. pretty cool, huh. i like it. i think the notecards and prints i do for the tourists this summer might all look a little this way.

everywhere i turn, even though i have turned off all media - except for the radio which is on all night, AM land - i'm hearing that our country is no longer a democracy. heard jeremy rifkin say as much touting his new book.

we need words. new ones. we need to create a discourse to get at what the country is, we know what it's not. post-modern oligarchy? fascism with a patina of populux? the biggest banana republic in the world? maybe rube heaven?

whatever it has become, my take is let it roll into oblivion. play with it. don't be afraid. don't not be afraid. be what you are becoming, a real human with a consciousness that is not only your right to be, but your moral responsibility. lose the modern persona that has encapsulated you. suffer. have fun. it's all going to go away, evaporate, because it's just a bad movie made by maniacs. have nothing to do with it.

turn away from the shadows and say hello to the light.

for example, why is this the case? it's wrong, we all know it:
MediaChannel.org - A Global Network of More Than 1,000 Media Issues Groups
"Due to unprecedented media ownership concentration, just five companies own most newspapers, record labels, concert venues, movie studios, cable companies, billboards, book publishers, and radio and TV stations. They control almost everything we see, hear and read. And the most important parts of the media value chain -- artists on the one hand, and communities and consumers on the other -- unnecessarily suffer most from these unholy sleeping arrangements:"

4.6.5

this picture was taken from colorado driver's license circa 1969. i cleaned it up quite a lot.

it was taken in a small basement stone chamber at the then pitkin county courthouse. present were myself, a policeman and dr. hunter h. thompson.

i look different today. so does hunter. but at least he has some plans for the future:

CNN.com - Thompson's ashes to be shot from cannon - Apr 5, 2005
"DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- Hunter S. Thompson's ashes will be blasted from a cannon mounted inside a 53-foot-high (16.15 meter-high) sculpture of the journalist's 'gonzo fist' emblem, his wife said Tuesday."

4.5.5

drew this while watching unc win final four.

did not wake up in time for class today. wonder what i missed. something about the brain i suppose.

doug dropped by on his way to yancy county. we talked about the usual from our separate but quirky point of views. for me, living in this time and place is like living in china and not speaking the language.

and maybe knowing too many other languages to attempt to learn a new one with the hope that something meaningful will come of it.

which is why it's always a delight to talk to an old friend from the same world - time & place - no translation required. try to watch television and do that. doesn't work for me.

it's a quarter to four and i'm about to eat breakfast. daylight time changes seem more and more monumental as i grow older. not trivial.

not much in the air today, total transparency equals nothing to see. which is ok, i've seen enough.

4.4.5

sketch i did yesterday at the riley's house during a gathering of Baba folks. julie and rusty from nashville were performing, piano and guitar. ( that's rusty's mike stand you see in the sketch).

really nice folks. a large gathering, a few folks i hadn't seen for awhile. beautiful spring day.

earlier i walked for about 2 hours, went downtown to card shop to see what the local artists were selling in terms of note cards. decided that the ones i had put together here were too small, so i'll be redoing the lot.

when i got home about 8, there was a message from dougie the nail who just blew into town, so i drove to steve and rachel's to visit.
two very different worlds.

couldn't sleep when i got home, so stayed up working on oil pastel and composing a piece of music which i'll listen to in a minute, have no idea what it is.

easy week coming up. at least it seems that way at the moment. i'm set to move on digital camera purchase. it is non-optional for me, must have seen a dozen beautiful shots during walk yesterday.

4.3.5

photo i took at my friend sam's place. not too happy with it's present color etc, but i ran out of time with it.

daylight savings time: what a surprise.

one thing about the pope, may he rest in peace: he was the only head of an early 22nd century institution who was man enough to enter the public domain, as a man. might be the last too if i am right about one of my pet theories, the demise of the institution as a way to motivate and organize people.

here is an example - sort of - of what i am talking about: humans vs the collective humans, ie institutions; corporations, the judiciary, schools, hospitals, etc., all when you get down to it fear driven and anachronistic in today's world:
Wired News: It's Not Graffiti, It's Grafedia
"As Geraci puts it, grafedia is chiefly concerned with the idea that the direction media moves in is preordained, but it's up in the air as to who can control it.

Today, companies with big advertising budgets are the main players in interactive media, engaging in activities like online ad campaigns or billboards encouraging some sort of viewer involvement. Geraci would like to change that.

'Grafedia is the option for the little guy to get involved in that dialogue,' he said."

4.2.5

another saturday morning. i can almost remember when i would have said "another saturday night", but that is terra incognito for me these days.

or maybe more accurately whatever the latin is for "forgotten" rather than "unknown".

i spent the whole week in a hurry. believe it or not i have just caught up on the household, truck, and other non-optional tasks, all pressing since i returned from toccoa 2 weeks ago.

i guess that is what the picture above is about. did it last night.

the man we can't quite forget:
Daily News Transcript - Arts & Culture News
"Like his literary role models, Walt Whitman and Thomas Wolfe, Kerouac mythologized the vast land and its hobos, outlaws and cowboys. So he transformed his own life into a national legend that, improbably, sent a restless generation into his own footsteps."

the sufi's are knocking on my door more than ever. various converging events tell me this. here is one item about them:
THE SPEAKING TREE: The Psycho-spiritual Dimension of Islam - The Times of India
"A Sufi can be distinguished from others through his detachment from mate-rial life and his ecstatic devotion to 'The Divine Life', free from pain and sorrow. The Sufis are people who prefer God to everything else and God prefers them to everything else.Sufism or tasawwuf, in Arabic, is the inner mystical or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. Today, how-ever, many believe that Sufism is outside the sphere of Islam. Despite its many variations and expressions, the essence of Sufi practice is that the Sufi surrenders to God in love, over and over; which involves embracing with love at each moment the content of one's consciousness as gifts of God or, as manifestations of God."

and this item brings to mind that if i were not such a retrograde techie, i'd be cranking out this sort of DVD flash quicktime statements (or thinking about it anyway):

Disinformation :: Award-Winning Techno-Spiritual Web Epic Comes To DVD
"'Hailed by Wired Magazine as 'Philip K Dick meets the Tibetan Book of the Dead', the mesmerizing 'cinematic literature' style of the Broken Saints series is entirely unique, and the DVD version builds upon the presentation with all-new art, intense visual effects, completely immersive Dolby 5.1 Surround, and acclaimed voice narration from a Vancouver cast that includes William B Davis (Cancer Man from The X-Files)."

go here for a sample:
Broken Saints

4.1.5

i' way ahead of the astrology column this week.

signed up for a month free to integralnaked.org, wilber's site. you get a free month. pretty dense place. much multimedia, definitely broadband only. so far haven't figured out how to hear any of it.

question: what is the "eternal now?"
answer: now.

Frenzy Begins Over Cookie Alternative
"The technology is based on a feature of Flash MX called 'local shared objects' (SOs), which can easily be placed on a user's machine by adding a piece of Javacript to a Web page. SOs are similar to cookies in concept and function. The main difference is Web users don't know what SOs are, and are therefore unlikely to delete them. Additionally, commercial anti-spyware applications do not typically block these files, as they do cookies."