yesterday i observed silence day.
sure was quiet.
ran across 2 quotes from odd sources that might be useful to us all:
"war effort will be justified or stand condemned not by the results it produces, but by the ends by which it was inspired."
Meher Baba during WWII.
"i think the american regime, the current american regime, seems to reflect a sort of gangsterism. and when i look at hip-hop in particular, it reflects the same. i see a sort of Republican agenda in commercial hip-hop. it's like,"i don't want to talk to you if your money ain't right". and i see the same mind set in the upper exhalants [sic?] of the republican regime which now reigns."
saul williams, quoted in asheville disclaimer.
just got back from 2 doctor's appointments and it's high noon. so now, for the rest of the day, it's playtime. by that i mean photos, paintings, letters, postings, software enigmas and finding a few lost objects that are more lost than normal.
in one doctor's office i found this in some reading material:
i seem to be in a summer slump lately, keep pecking away on random projects, but it's like i'm sleepwalking.
last night mike may of reems creek was bludgeoned to death by some creep he was trying to help. those of us who knew mike knew that he was a little rough around the edges but truly had a heart of gold. a generous and free spirit. another hole in the life of his many friends. see CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Suspect charged with murder of Reems Creek man
attended potluck sunday evening. Baba folks, very pleasant, a breath of sanity, cool breeze of meaning in what is turning out to be a hard summer.
well despite the humidity & the heat i guess i'll go on hiking club jaunt to the parkway this morning. "it'll be some kind of change."
i got a brass magnifying lamp from my sister yesterday. she gave it to my dad and he didn't like it, so she sent it to me. Beautifully made, but not very useful. reminds me of those expensive tripod mounted telescopes you see in homes from time to time, that serve an ornamental not functional purpose. however i can use it in my visual painting/photo/greeting card production system which is, after all, composed of all sorts of oddball equipment. thanks jane <=== who should be in europe somewhere by now (she left yesterday).
third night of chaotic dreams. i think it may be because of the antibiotics i'm taking.
wanna peek into the future of the dubious branding meme? go here:
deseretnews.com | Mom sells face space for tattoo advertisement"
'Will it go numb?' she asked.
'It'll go as numb as your brain,' Brouse replied."
the long flat weekend begins. i have no fond memories of the 4th.
and as for driving somewhere that is the same as where i drove from, no thanks. especially since the highway became horsepower hysteria, revved up adrenalin-charged insanity.
kind of analogous to society in general these days. back in the bad good old days i remember wavy gravy urging humans to emerge from their urban caves into the daylight.
it was a good idea then, and might be now. but no thanks, i just flat can't take it any more. too much of nothing, and most of it collective insanity that is difficult if not impossible to be in and not of.
now on to a more important topic: the last two nights i've been dreaming up a storm, so to speak. this is not usual for me these days due to cerebral wear and tear.
night before last was not bad, a pleasant jaunt to paris with my old old friend Kathy f. she guided me through crowded but not threatening streets full of folks she seemed to know well.
but last night. i was stuck in some sort of philip k. dick nightmare. it started in a sort of dorm place where i ordered a movie. turned out that in order to see it i had to step into a sort of large hall which began to fill up with other folks who were on viewer list. the "movie" or whatever the hell it was began, only this one swapped all our identities. and realities. there was occasional drop-out where the technicians running this thing could be heard or seen dealing with problems. whoever i was could vaguely remember a bag or kit i had brought, and ended up crawling through a crowd of shifting personality fragments looking for it. this totally screwed up the behind the walls equipment responsible for maintaining this particular world, and a long series of point-of-view flip flops and shifts began, personalities flickering in and out of existence, new ego every "now", walls and worlds dissolving and reforming for ever.
after an eternity i woke up. at least i think i did. not so sure after a dream like this.
it's been raining and my phone went out yesterday. i won't go into the madness of trouble shooting etc, you've probably been there yourself. if i can post his - if you're reading it i can - then the only glitch left is that i can receive email but can't send it.
[much later] somedays the bits and bytes just don't play together well. here goes one more try.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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,
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
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?
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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".
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.
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."
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.
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."
