yesterday was R&R for me. didn't make the friends meeting at 10 again. the windows were open all day, and so was i. maybe i won't have to move to canada. barely made it to 4:00 Baba meeting at rita's. good clean straight to the point gathering. back home and watched the simpson's and to bed.

fooled around most of the afternoon and ended up in personality test land. these are the results.
-------------
some kind of mythos test:


You are Form 3, Unicorn: The Innocent.

"And The Unicorn knew she wasn't meant to
go into the Dark Wood. Disregarding the advice
given to her by the spirits, Unicorn went
inside and bled silver blood.. For her
misdeed, the world knew evil."

[yikes... misdeed indeed... i wonder which one of many?]

Some examples of the Unicorn Form are Eve
(Christian) and Pandora (Greek).
The Unicorn is associated with the concept of
innocence, the number 3, and the element of
water.
Her sign is the twilight sun.

As a member of Form 3, you are a curious
individual. You are drawn to new things and
become fascinated with ideas you've never come
in contact with before. Some people may say
you are too nosey, but it's only because you
like getting to the bottom of things and
solving them. Unicorns are the best friends to
have because they are inquisitive.

[because they are inquisitive? i guess i would rephrase it to say that the best kind of friend's for a unicorn to have are inquisitive.]


Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
----
[this one was enneagram test - i think - & i don't speak enneagram. a year ago i tested 5W4.]

Main Type	Overall Self

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

Scale (|||||||%) results:

Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||| 18% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||| 48% Type 3 Image Focus |||||| 22% Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||||||||| 49% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||||| 76% Type 6 Anxiety |||||| 29% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||| 42% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||| 34% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||||| 66% Your main type is 5 Your variant is self pres [low on perfectioism, image focus, and anxiety. wonder which image? (self-image i suppose, but which self?]

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

-------
[maslow's inventory. never took it before.

]

Maslow Inventory Results

Physiological Needs (47%) you appear to have an adequate supply of basic necessities. Safety Needs (37%) you appear to have a very secure environment. Love Needs (47%) you appear to be semi-content with the quality of your social connections. Esteem Needs (60%) you appear to have a medium level of skill competence. Self-Actualization (73%) you appear to have a high level of individual development.

Take Free Maslow Inventory Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

------------------
[i thought this was myer's brigg's. maybe it was.
INFP. i first took it 30 years ago and have always tested INFP. my friend karen was telling me that high intuitive and complimentary low sensation can be thought of as pathological, and that is how i always test. the only difference this result showed was the thinking/feeling axis, which in the past has been about 50/50. this time it was more like feeling 75% feeling and 25% thinking, which sounds about right to me.]

INFP - "Questor". High capacity for caring. Emotional face to the world. High sense of honor derived from internal values. 4.4% of total population.

Take Free Jung Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

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

my thoughts on this stuff:
i need to construct yet another personality typology test, maybe the modern peasant Little People Running Amuck in Your Head Test.

it's 7am and i'm taking camera for a walk up sunset mountain.

beautiful day, windows open, and i've farted around with this picture long enough.

yesterday i planned to go to charley oldham's memorial service in hendersonville at 2pm but bottomed out after lunch and spent awhile in metabolic limbo. around 5 i poked my head outside, the blazing inferno of the past few weeks had cooled down so i walked to town and checked out bele cher. haven't been in a few years. it was good to stick my big toe in the turbulent waters, what a zoo, still daylight, wondered through the crowds. talked to most of the artists who were displaying their wares. one painter from franklin showed me some prints made on the epson r300 using fredrix canvas as a substrate, they looked great. so i think third party watercolor paper and canvas deserves a little exploration on my part.

drifted over to see driveby truckers concert. found an old folks perch leaning over a wall, there were no rocking chairs. i hadn't heard this band before, altho a few years ago i came close to going to a concert with richard and tharpa before i chickened out.

southern rock. i could see the crowd and the band and stayed until the end. the spirit of too many times and places gone played with my mind. i was aware of friends no longer on the planet who seemed to hover nearby. the gestalt of the crowd, the collective maniac joy. instead of smoking dope the audience held up telephones beaming the scene to god knows where. a good many were looking at the screens of digital cameras at any given moment.

the band was good, three guitars sending overtones of anguish and strangely bucolic nostalgia to the stars. when they slowed down a bit to do "decoration day" it brought tears to my eyes. i remembered my grandfather's grave out in the arizona desert, the folks decorating graves up on big ridge when i had a family and we lived on that beautiful and harsh mountain, robert johnson singing "please see that my grave is swept clean".

that line from delillo: "the future belongs to the crowd". and leonard cohen: "i've seen the future, and it is murder."

pleasant walk back two miles in the dark, thoughts rolling and tumbling while the invisible bubble of grace floated above me.

today's iconic vizual is a drawing i made while waiting for greg brown to open at the gray eagle awhile back. i finished it in the dark. as is my habit i had no idea of where the image was heading and was pleasantly surprised the next day when i recognized my old stomping grounds circa 1970, whiteside cove in jackson county.

pleasant interlude last night w/ asheville bloggers. very variegated group so to speak. let a thousand flowers bloom. the push to express one's self, or maybe the self behind the self, is non-optional for some of us citizens of the millennium. always a pleasure to share some time and space with those so afflicted.

found this watercolor while digging thru my "studio", ie bedroom. unloaded everything into front room and thinning it out.

i probably painted it 2 years ago. it reminds me of the early 60's. not much else does.

pleasant rainy morning. cleared a couple of GB off audio hard drive. there was some weird stuff there.

a random sentence from current book, sri auribindo, or the adventure of consciousness by some frenchman named satprem, first published 1970. i'm really enjoying it.

"again, let us emphasize that this is not a matter of intellectual speculation, a philosophical dilemma to be resolved, but a cosmic fact, an organic reality like the needles on the porcupine's back."

Gomez, the neighborhood Kat
weather broke last night, but not much. did manage to make a long delayed run to target at the (ugh) mall this morning. shut out the weather when i got back.

not much to say today, but i did read one of the best letters to the editor i've ever read in this week's Mountain Xpress. i don't know why it jumped out at me, but it did.

"Moving across psychic tundras

Thoughts while waiting for a job interview in the lobby of a mental health agency: I believe in neither tradition nor the future. I used to believe he who does not adapt, does not survive. But what if the things you need to do to adapt deaden your soul? What if the repressive nature of forgetting, so essential to letting go and adaptation, murders the essence of delicate human nature?

We are moving too fast, and the evidence is everywhere in human affairs: the slumped shoulders, the wringing hands, the drugged shuffle, the vacant stare of exhausted faith, the whispered timidity of battered nerves. We demand too much of one another: too much concentrated time, too many money payments and too high a price for slow compliance, too much obsessive carnality, too many cinematic myths celebrating strangeness and violence, too many journeys across psychic tundras without horizons. Too much work for too little pay. Jobs, like schizophrenic voices, that demand we deny ourselves a life in order to survive.

We assault the brain and body with toxins and stimulants and call it pleasure. Being stimulated and poisoned has become the standard of normality, and those who suffer chronically debilitating side effects are corralled with stigma and drugs.

Tradition will not return us to some old, romanticized world. The future rests its limp, heavy hand on our collective shoulder. We must slough it off. Its promise is tyranny; there are too many lost souls waiting for an afterlife. The sick and the caregiver live in the moment with only one thing on their minds: the quality of mercy.

– Adrian Murillo
West Asheville"
from
Letters to the editor / Mountain Xpress / Asheville, NC

and then this, another one from the heart, and from an unlikely place. go ahead, read it and see what you think.
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

i'm in meltdown mode. i made physical therapy appt at 1 yesterday, but scratched all other activities and rushed back to air conditioning, totally useless for rest of day.

this morning got up at 5:30, did get out for awhile (and took above picture; got a good one of a cat also).

then i just slept in front of a fan until lunch, and did the same after lunch, reading random paragraphs which i don't remember from a pile of books.

nobody here but us chickens, and not a hell of a lot going on.

took this foto last week on parkway. very hot and hazy up there, altho better than aville. better than most of the nation i guess.

altho i've been holed up waiting out the heat did get downtown friday, saturday and sunday night. no, i got out those nights. friday was reems creek get together of the elders, and was pleasantly cool. saturday was a quick trip to Shindig on the Green. and Sunday to jazz society.

Yesterday i went grocery shopping around 4 and it wiped me out.

I'm hiding from the heat. so to speak.

cross posted picture to BlogAsheville. you might want to check it out, it is fascinating presentation of some very talented folks.

i think i'll crank out a bunch of bumper stickers this week, altho words still fail me. maybe this one:
Outlaw the Criminal Overworld

still playing w/ digital camera, this is photo of old friend ninian who has been up from butner for yearly swannanoa gathering, a week of old timey music at warren wilson.

continued yesterday on operation clean sweep, got back to last room which i'm about to start on. this is small bedroom where i paint and it will take a few days. stacks of drawings, prints, photos to ruthlessly go thru, brushes, palettes, paints.

went downtown with ninian last evening. we ate at laughing seed cafe, excellent meal. the place has upscaled since i was last there, i guess the whole town has. strolled down to shindig on the green, a summer saturday night affair, old timey appalachian and bluegrass music. musicians everywhere in small groups jamming. the heat was almost gone, a pleasant evening.

this evening friend karen and i are going to hear asheville jazz society's presentation of jazz, gospel with a new orleans twist. as usual i have no idea of what to expect and will keep it that way.

so this will make 3 outing in a row. a personal best.

this week i will try and roll out bumper sticker scheme. the idea is to print up a whole bunch of bumper stickers and scatter them thru town at all the free newspaper outlets. what has held me back is content. so instead of a timely meme or trope i will fall back to default: the best things in life aren't things.

yesterday... yesterday... what did i do?

i can't remember... now i can: housecleaning on another hard drive, archived onto cd-rom a lot of files. i only have left audio partition which is way too full. hope to do that today.

went to the happy hour for the tribal elders at john and bev's, the first coolish weather i've spent all summer. beautiful evening. played around with digital camera and got the above. not bad considering i still am in hacking mode with it.

very sleepless night. i should have just given up and gone outside, see if i could get a night shoot of full moon.

should see ninian before the day is over. might walk downtown this evening weather permitting and experience shindig on the green

foto taken at winnie's house. she made this guy.

happy hour at dr. johns this evening. excellent timing.



what i wonder about all the terrible terrorist activity: if you inventoried all of the explosives on earth and divided that by the number of humans alive today, how many pounds per person would it equal. a lot i think.

and why were - are - these materials manufactured? to what purpose?

my answer to that question is not adam smith's. i think it is because a profit is made. and in our world no other explanation is needed, or even allowed. so the profiteers just keep cranking the stuff out, and anyone that thinks the use is restricted is dreaming. like saturday night specials, heroin, and other socially undesirable products, profit ensures that an endless supply is available to any wigged out freak that needs the stuff. an unexpected side effect of capitalism.

finally finished the above. lots of gauche and a little india ink. i plan to varnish it some day. i worked on it i don't know how many days, but a lot of them.

spent the first half of the day doing early morning trip to west asheville pharmacy and then feeling very ill until after lunch. then i paid bills and otherwise tried to catch up with my life.

i need to clean up two hard drives. transfer a whole lot of files to zip disks. so i've been looking at them (the zip disks) and am finding a lot of pretty good pictures going back maybe 5 years. printed an 8 by 10 of one of them this morning and it's beautiful.

don't exactly know why this fascinates me, but it is one more sign that: 1) things just keep on changing, or 2) something is very off:
Indo-Asian News Service -> Germany-Wildlife/Tech-Birds -> Birds imitate mobile phone ring tones
they have learnt to imitate the ring tones of the omnipresent mobile phones, say German ornithologists.

yesterday i took care of bizness, among which was laundry. could not face the laundromat, so i went to old friend winnies palace - and it is a palace - and while clothes were rolling and tumbling took a few photos. above is one.

today started off well, continued sorting "stuff", getting rid of "stuff" and moving "stuff". took a load , big load, of cardboard containers to recycling center.

before lunch i tested "sugar", as they call it around here. 498. infusion set for insulin pump had apparently clogged. the routine for this situation is a hefty syringe of insulin, change out the set, and drink lots of water, all of which i did. and don't eat. had a dentist appointment at 2, layed down, conked out, and awoke at 1:45. made it to appt and explained i wasn't hitting on all cylinders and why. this was a consult to lay out alternative to dentures. of course my blood glucose was steadily dropping back to normal and i didn't understand much of what she said.

when i left i drove to doctors to pick up a prescription. still - let's be honest here - dazed and confused i stopped at huddle house, probably about 3:30. ordered toast, scrambled eggs, grits and tested again. 39. ate and drove home, drank some juice and layed down again. came to around six o'clock.

a day in the life of a type I diabetic. not complaining, just the facts. the difficult thing to convey is the inner experience. it takes about a day to recover and feel "normal". sometimes, in spite of my advanced spiritual state and non-dual space i really hate this disease.

they say tomorrow is another day. i'll do what survivors have always done, begin again.

no sleep last night. i found myself walking around the apartment time after time. sleepwalking? no, i was awake. watched TV for awhile, infomercials about money.

still spring cleaning, have a truckload of stuff to take to landfill. did kitchen yesterday, will finish today by going thru drawers and cabinents to unload any unusable pots, pans, gadgets, and all of the stuff that typically gets left in drawers.

did do a nice photoprint which i'll send off today. it's a gift.

my youngest son nathan is leaving tomorrow to visit my oldest son eric in northern california. should be a welcome break for both.

i've been having some anomolies posting to this blog. probably has to do w/ ancient code in templates, guess i'll fix.

this morning was cool enough for a walk up the old mountain. got back around 10 and it was already way too hot. plenty of folks out earlier though.

i have to admit that it is kind of neat to meet a flower, take it's picture, and post all in a small space of time. i haven't been into taking pictures in many many years.

i've decided it will take all week to get my living module in order. today it's the kitchens turn.

been reading a book jeff w. leant me at least a year ago about Sri Auribindo. came across the following:
"...it appears that the world moves according to a wiser evolutionary law, whereby nothing can be saved unless everything is saved."
from Sri Auribindo, or the adventure of consciousness by satprem

weird looking picture. pencil plus pixie dust.

i finally got out yesterday around 12. took my old walk up the mountain for about an hour. and that put me out for the rest of the day. not the exercise, the tropical heat and humidity.

i am beginning to think i need to find higher ground for real.

still spring house cleaning. got one room almost done.

my habit is to get up in the morning. so far so good.

the rest, as they say, is a collection of small surprises, curve balls, diversionary smoke and mirrors, and holding my breath until i surface.

now that all that is done for another day it's off to the grocery store.

sometimes my compulsion to create and slide daily images out into the world pays off. i've sort of been plodding along in this domain lately, and the above is a good example. a painting that never worked from the start, i improved it about 1000% after scanning. cool. and it should make a nice 8 x 10 print.

in a moment i'm going to try and walk up sunset mountain like i used to do. if i can beat the heat.

otherwise the entire weekend until tomorrow at 5 is spring cleaning. (yeah, late again).

another imaginary landscape. this one started out 2 days ago as pencil drawing done in doctor's waiting room.

the link below says it well: it's about medical studies:
CNN.com - Research: Third of study results don't hold up - Jul 13, 2005:
"What was good for you yesterday frequently will turn out to be not so great tomorrow."

but it is a fascinating and frustrating fact about life also.

as soon as you've "got it", the solution, the answer to the meaning of life, you've lost it. but don't know you've lost it until the toll of living in an unconscious dream again creates enough desperation and confusion for the universal drive for meaning to start prowling again, pushing us in new and unexpected directions.

if you understand the preceding sentence let me know. i don't.

speaking of imaginary landscapes, i saw "howl's moving castle" yesterday. had no idea of what it was except a japanese cartoon. "anime" i guess altho i've never been sure of what that means.

visually it is gorgeous. stunning. light and reflection, shadows, mist, glints and gleams we mostly don't register in day to day life.

but more importantly it has the meaning a collective "big dream" might have. not literal, just a look at life here on earth, youth, old age, death, love, beauty, the good and the true. best movie i've seen in maybe a quarter of a century. this is millinial art of the highest order.

Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004)

Howl's Moving Castle:
"A wise and wonderful parable of the passing moments of life, and dealing with both the advantages and burdens that make us individuals."

a busy week, sliding towards this and that. for those of you keeping track, i got a great night's sleep. it's about 8 in the morning and i'm about to drive south on the parkway to take some pictures, moody cloudy foggy mountain landscapes. or whatever the morning offers.

yesterday i went for yearly diabetic retnopathy check and got a gold star, no complications, so you can call me hawk eye.

tonight i hope to see japanese cartoon, howls's moving castle, i think that's the name, i'll repost if it isn't.
Movie Review: Howl's Moving Castle / Mountain Xpress / Asheville, NC

printed a bumper sticker last night, the print quality is great. it reads "crazy old men barely make history" and is a little too esoteric - or dumb - to fool around with any more. reworked out of control watercolor with guoach to see what happens. long ago in a watercolor book i saw an italian landscape which knocked me out. it was done with gouach and then varnished, gave it an almost photorealistc sheen and brightness, so that's what i'm after.

made it up the parkway and back down. here is what i brought back:

mmmm.... not much is it? bet you'd think different if you put your head down and ran towards it at full speed.

this item about appropriate punishment for german hacker who created sasser virus last year (you'll need to register, free, for ny times):
Worse Than Death - New York Times: "Make the hacker spend 16 hours a day fielding help-desk inquiries in an AOL chat room for computer novices. Force him to do this with a user name at least as uncool as KoolDude and to work on a vintage IBM PC with a 2400-baud dial-up connection. Most painful of all for any geek, make him use Windows 95 for the rest of his life."

from card i made for my niece anne.

this is the 3rd time i've tried to post today, the first 2 times i blew away all the typing i'd done. too bad because i'm sure it was topical, interesting and thoughtful meditation on the human condition.

saturday i went to memorial for mike may at the reitzle's. large crowd, the preacher was great, a respectful and nostalgic send off. mike appreciated it. it had a western north carolina touch to it: nobody there that just arrived in town to check out the vortices.

driving home i heard on the radio the author - at least i think that was who she was - of nickel and dimed to death - say "there is a whole class of people who don't have a clue about how people live today, and most sit behind large desks in washington dc." (very loose quote). it occurred to me that the gathering i had just been to was made up of these "officially" marginalized and invisible folks.

the above came from playing with camera. don't take it too literally.

i've been thinking bumper stickers for awhile and might simplify the picture, embolden the letters, and paste it on my bumper; i want to see how long the material will last.

speaking of bumper stickers i saw one in town i liked. but couldn't remember what it said. late last night it came to me and i scribbled it down:

The Only Bush i Trust is My Own

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.

"Of those who say nothing, few are silent."
Thomas Neill

"He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak."
Ausonius

ok here is the real first digital snapshot taken this morning. what a relief.

still stuck for RAW image format transfer to mac os 9.1. i guess i don't care that much about it at the moment.

today: yesterday's chores, including runs to grocery store and pharmacy, bank, drugstore. at 2:00 memorial service for mike out at reems creek.

thoughts: not yet, it's still early.

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:

when darkness falls, men see stars
ralph waldo emerson.

reminds me of dylan:

it's not dark yet
but it's getting there

speaking of whom i read in another waiting room periodical that dylan has given his cachet to some wine label. $70 a bottle.

also that author ed mcbain died. see edmcbain.com. his 87th precinct series can be read over and over, i've got one from the library now that i know i must have read in the past.

stumbled across a form that give's me a blogger code: mine is

the blogger code:
"B9 d t k s-- u- f i- o x-- e l c "

[more later]

this is the first picture i got from fortuitous sony dcs-v3. still plugin along with antiquated system, next i want to figure out RAW format and in the meanwhile what is is.

got 2 beautiful postcards printed today. i finally found my glasses around 6 o'clock, what a relief. then heard about london attack. as soon as it was mentioned i remembered hearing while i was waking up. but got totally side tracked by all of the above and below that i forgot about it.

New York Daily News - Home - Astrologer sues NASA for 300M for comet blast
"Claiming NASA messed with the balance of the universe by intentionally smashing a probe into a comet, a Russian astrologer has filed a $300 million lawsuit against the U.S. space agency."

"
says it better than i could myself.

remember otis?: "don't know much about astrology". . .

but rob brezny is pretty good.

its almost 4 in the afternoon and i'm still looking for my glasses.

picture below sure is big.

another one of those wordless days. words fail me. so i drew the above last night on a scrap of paper.

headlines of the asheville citizen-times this morning:

Kind man dies in shocking slaying

it was good they got that first word right.

i think i am at the point now where i can update blog template and pull pictures into the image archive. expect changes.

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.

one of those days when i just don't feel right. unsynched. unbalanced. assymetric. anhedonic. probably should immediately go back to bed.

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.

an oil painting i did, maybe it was the third one i've ever painted and yes, i messed with it a bit after scanning so i guess now it's a polymorphic multi-graffiti.

i've been looking at my fellow ashevillians blogs and i have to admit i feel a little remiss in not keeping up and posting my take on the cultural/ political scene. they are a smart energetic bunch. take a look: BlogAsheville

but i've got nothing to say about the disaster, the long emergency. live by PR, die by PR. the brand is king, the logo is the sign, discourse has become talking points (you might blame that last one on powerpoint but i don't want to go there today).

the book club i belong to will next read don't think of an elephant by lakoff. looking through the table of contents it appears to me that this might be something we should all read: it is by a linguist and may explain a lot about how the post-modern persona that is evolving rapidly doesn't consciously feel the fear that living in a bandit kingdom should evoke.

6.29.5

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.

6.27b.5

today is my son and daughter's birthday. i love them both very much. and i almost remember taking this picture, basalt colorado, winter of...69?

i sent them some photos from that era, retouched beyond what i thought i could pull out of some very faded and scratched prints.

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