5.10a.5

new search engine; a little buggy on my system, ithe idea is to present google search results (ranked by traffic) combined with statistics on the site, plus user reviews. if the reviews catch on, that is if users take the interest and time to review the site, it might turn out in time to be interesting and maybe even useful:
Alexa Web Search - In Association with Amazon.coms

5.10.2

speaking of swarms, check this out :BioMedNet News and Comment

5.8.2

i love this kind of headline; maybe it's the use of the ex-oxymoron "swarm intelligence". my swarm intelligence reminds me that the opening line of one of tom dellilo's books is: "the future belongs to the crowd".

Swarm Music is believed to be the first application of swarm intelligence to music.

5.7.2

still don't have much to say. installed new memory in G3. took a walk and some pictures of flowers. put the 10th wash down on a watercolor. if i weren't trying to slim down the number of books to read in my old age, i'd add a bunch of these:
The Professor's Bookshelf: Recommended Reading Charles T. Tart Home Page and Consciousness Library Online

5.7.2

added a new midi file to multimedia section. my latest theory: midi files and mov files play fine on macs (via quicktime). on windows, midi files play via MS media player (altho i'm not sure what voices it uses) or some other midi internet helper app. movies play only if QuickTime is loaded (80% of PCs last count).

so maybe you want to do something collabortive with your computer. (i do). link below might do the trick, altho i'd rather my digital machine be used to predict meme patterns (or something like that).

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Worldwide weather watchers wanted

5.6.2

i'm finding it hard to write about anything because it all just seems the same. an endless wind of sameness. so i'll guess i'll do the quote thing while i'm banging out the shape of this blog.

Quotes "Memory believes before knowing remembers."
-William Faulkner

5.5.2

back home in the bunker.

thinking about how i avoid talking about the personal on this site. a virtual denmark. but maybe some sort of narritive will emerge.

this dicussed in general in interesting interview of blogger creator ev:

"And for day-to-day intelligence gathering and staying informed, amused, or even entertained, browsing a few blogs from well-informed, articulate, like-minded people who are out there finding things that may be interesting to you and commenting on them is way more efficient and rewarding than going from news site to news site."

..."Also, not being afraid to add your own personality is important. A big part of what attracts people to blogs is their personal nature, as opposed to corporate media, but some people aren't comfortable enough to let themselves show, so they tend to be less interesting than they could be."

on the other hand, there's this - seems like a joke now but might become...something new in a new world:BBC News | SCI/TECH | Here come the ratbots

5.4.2

cool. someone told me today this site was reviewed. probably he forgot address, tried search engine, and found this review.

i think it's pretty fair.

[BTW i was suppossed to review "dramimine" which i did but never put it up because of mother's death and lack of time. will fix thix.]

"thinking outloud" is i believe mentioned, and that is what i guess i am doing. not only does this demonstrate the pointlessness of thinking, but also samuel butler's quip:"life is like learning to play the violin on stage in front of a packed audience" comes to mind.

cause i don't know what this site is for. never have. just some blips off the top of my head, don't know how to document minute-by-minute life with words, more twinkle and blinkle needed to comminicate mood, perplexity, muse beyond words, cold eye on passing scene. passing very fast. sprinkle with images that have arrived from somewhere special delivery.

in arizona i hope to record my father who in mid 80's is youngest of 4 living brothers and sisters. want to talk to them all together at rosie's (the eldest) 90th birthday this december. now that would be content, because the world we each live in is in the process of dissappearing fast. whether written text can preserve part of these worlds is an open question but i like the idea of doing it just for the doing of it. (BTW our turn to lose our world is next.)

daughter nicole phoned tonight, her testimony not required till june trial rather than next week.so i'm not leaving monday for chapel hill and moral support which is a blessing. i need some free recovery minutes.

in order to keep off the streets the rest of the year my program is to 1) fix midis and quicktimes so they'll play under windows; 2) link image archive thumbnails to bigger images; and 3) watch my nails grow, watch my breath, learn some music; and 4) be ambivalant about death.

5.2.2

Modern Peasant is Back

been in arizona since the 12th of april. mom's funeral and spent some time with my father who needs a little moral support but i think he is going to be all right, has clear priorties and knows what he will have to do, for example flying again, getting out a little. he knows it will all take time.

saw lots of relatives and friends. enjoyed meeting patrick and kathy and hannah in prescott. seeing cousin joe who i see once every 15 years, hope we can make it sooner next time. pleasant visit with sister jane, husband fred and children jon and anne in phoenix. thanks much to ann and janet for a very fiendly and peaceful bar b q send off.

jet lag is a lot like confusion; something is different but i'm not sure what. above watercolor painted on dad's front porch. cold turkey on computer time but did find out that midi and quicktime i have up is not playing well at all under windows. will fix.

4.19.5

i'm in prescott az updating this thing thanks to my father's neighbors katy and patrick. i arrived last monday (i think). my mom's funeral was last thursday; it was a roman catholic service - mom converted last year - first time i have been in a roman catholic church in 30 years or so. service was very nice, preacher was great (i guess i should call him a "priest", southern roots showing).


i'm staying awhile with my dad who is doing really well under the circumstances. i'll be here until last week in april, maybe first week in may. i need to be back in chapel hill nc by the 6th of may for a trial my daughter nicole is testifying in; she needs moral support.


been trying to paint the western mountain landscape, very different than smoky mountain green. will visit some relatives in phoenix i don't see often enough before i leave. after that "the future is uncertain, the end is always near" (jim morrison). reading "the crackup" by f. scott fitzgerald. a couple of chapters in it are the best thing he ever wrote in my opinion. aftermath stuff, after it's all (almost) over. here's a sample:

"i felt; therefore i was"


not as negative in it's context, but something to think about. i'll post more about it later. gotta go now and catch a coyote.

4.7.2

Modern Peasant on Hiatus
back april 29th.

going to arizona to attend mom's funeral and spend some time with my dad. meanwhile, here's the word on my week.

i don't speak astrology, but this guy seems to hit the nail on the head quite often. rob brezsney:"free will astrokogy". i believe that dealing with the realities is a good thing to do, depending... but maybe all at the same time is not such a good idea. i also believe this is the artist's delimma.

4.4.2

Winona Parsons
my mother passed away last night. she was a unique lady. she fought cumulative heart problems right up to the end. she knew what she was up against but never gave up. may she rest in peace.

"I rise above the crescent moon to the seven stars, beyond the history of man, beyond numbers and words that bind us. From the earth I rise like a falcon of gold released from a blue egg. I fly above and below the great worlds. I take the shape of a young girl working. In my belly I carry the seed that becomes me. Praise the corn that rots and the sedge that rises. Praise the emerald heart of earth. Praise the coming and going of creatures, the constancy of the world and the word.

I come from light and to light I return. My talons grasp the ring of colors: the gold beak of dawn, the blue eye of day , the deep red blood of dusk . I rise . In truth I burst on the world like an arrow flung from darkness, sparks of fire from my forehead like burning stars streak the sky. I gather myself, thought and bone, and burst again into flight. I soar and know the god who speaks with the voice of flame.

I am one of the great ones sitting in a field of corn. I eat and I am nourished. In turn I offer myself, the bread of air, the white spirit of fire. I am a falcon of gold. I burn with a passion and lie still . I flare and smolder, live and die in a breath. I sail on gold wings that fan the blaze. I am consumed by fire. This is what I was born to do: to live, to love, to know, to change and embrace the infinite. I shall not forget my becoming."

from "awakening osiris: the egyptian book of the dead" translated by Normandi Ellis.

4.3.2

about the middle east today i'm speechless. about the citizens of the usa and israel i'm stunned. so much doublespeak. we're paying for the distruction of a people.

yesterday when i noted that bush was "a jingle a day" man, i meant that in this time of disintegrating public discourse when we could use someone like charles barkley to stand up and talk sense, we have instead president bush who seems to get programmed each day to say one snippet, slogan, glib alliterative phrase over and over and over until the next day. i'm sure his handlers are from the ad world where the same principle has been gradually eroding the minds of "the consumer" for some time now. hitler used the Big Lie. today the powers that be in the usa (and believe me, they do be) use the little, short, catchy lie repeated endlessly for a heartbeat until the next one is churned out.

have a nice day.

4.2.2

maybe i'm not seeing what is happening in the middle east clearly. to me the problem seems simple, though not the answer. a people from far away dispossess another people, takes their land, fields, and homes, and puts the inhabitants in refugee camps. they do this on the on the authority of god. the victims and fair-minded onlookers see it as unfair.

the initial dispossession is done with the help of a few powerful nation states, and the invaders are continually financed and assisted by the world's most powerful nation state.

it might be worth mentioning here something from tom friedman's book "the lexus and the olive tree":

"if you planted a tree between jerusalem and tel aviv, visit it soon. it may not be there much longer because by 2020 the area from haifa to tel aviv to jerusalem is likely to become one big, seamless urban megalopolis. israelis are building as if they lived in australia-more is better, bigger is better, wider is better. if current population trends continue, israeli, outside the negev desert, will soon be one of the most densely populated countries in the world." (p.309)

and now they finish off the refugee camps, shutting down (or worse) arafat while blaming him and his people for the whole rout. and this from the people who invented the mossad and the stern gang.

so what is absolutely the worst thing about this horrible mess? there are a lot of candidates but my vote goes to the american citizen who seems to listen to "a jingle a day" bush and beam at the atrocities being committed right now. you've heard of the "good germans" during WWII, the stable, conventional citizens who went about their business while the jews were being exterminated? the "good americans" who ignore the sordid, prolonged, and vicious treatment of a people being eradicated are much worse. the germans could not see the warsaw ghetto destruction while it was happening

enough. i'm going to go watch disneyland.

4.1.2

i'm back home and glad to be. heard via electronic grapevine that there was concern for my health because my recent posts have been so short. i'm fine. the reason posts have lacked customery incisive commentary is that i've been camped out in 4 cylinder yurt for 6 of the last 11 days (where i sketched the scene above). also engaged in a lot of projects all of a sudden:

• paint watercolor landscapes, print via giclee, sell, pay bills.
• kludging together some kind of digital recording/mixing setup, operating out of my hip pocket
• programming various little utitlities and applets using realbasic. definite challange for dyslexic like myself
• edit and print book of 150 ditties i have accumulated, later add color a la "illustrated rumi"
• finish image archive links

so tommorrow back to the digital grindstone with the question "how is rumala 2002 different from warsaw ghetto whatever year that was?"

3.28.2

leaving in the morning for chapel hill where i hope to spend a little time with children and grandchildren. today i picked up a giclee (accent over the last "e", i'll figure out later how to put it on the page) print of five of my pictures, pretty impressive. i'll be using this technique to produce western north carolina landscapes, soon i hope. there are still some missing pieces in my repetoire at this point.

this morning i found the following scribbled on a piece of paper laying around the place; so far i've found over 150 of these things and will publish if i ever find the last one:

a wink of the eye
a flash in the pan
there i was
and here i am

god's odd moments
in between
breath heading south
if you know what i mean

it seems apparent
there's noone there
to answer the door
to god knows where

3.27a.2

last thursday morning i was waiting with my packed truck to meet some folks and caravan down to a retreat in ga. they were a little late, it was a beautiful morning, so i stood outside and leaned against the truck drinking coffee. off in the distance i saw a figure jump down from a parked semi with a beard and a backpack. young man. eventually he passed me and i asked "where you headed?" he stopped and said "the strip".

now this was happening in asheville NC, and the only 2 strips i know are commercial, huge, ugly, sprawling, and uneccessary. which i told him. "no, no" he said, "you know, where the hippies are".

"you want to go downtown", i said, and pointed out the way.

"i read about it in rolling stone", he continued. "i'm from topeka. i was too late for the height".

i thought what a wonderful country and western song might be made of his last sentence and replied "you better hurry".

3.27.2

got hit with some kind of bug: sore throat, crossed-eyes, etc. probably something just "goin araound", like the earth. still can't watch the mediated snooze, i mean news, so not a lot to say about it.

altho it does occur to me that the catholic church shenannigans, the enron mess, the anderson accounting firm brou-haha and all the other institutional melt-downs happening today involve the loss of suspended disbelief by the public/consumer/audience/viewer. the difference between the way it's done and the way it is said it is done is dissolving. not fast enough in my opinion to free up some energy for important tasks like saving the world.

3.26.2

i'm trying to get back to thoughtful (?) observations about our world. maybe that's an oxymoron. two things are delaying this:

1) devolution into techno-marathons involving computer memory, software patches, debugging, digital recording, etc. which have of late kept me locked in front of a monitor; and

2) i've been in the woods and missed sam donaldson last sunday.

from the news i've gathered in the wind (kurt vonnigut called it "visceral knowledge", ie you don't need mediated news to know what's happening) (apologies to bob dylan) i would say:

arafat's days are numbered. it's a done deal. i repeat what i said earlier, that in this day and age the fact that god tells you someone else's land is yours does not justify what isreal is doing. admittedly it is too late to be undone, but an apology is in order to the people they dispossessed and put into refugee camps. after that the isreal could share the land with the people who hold deeds to it, ie palastinians. in fact share their homes. i am not being flip, the palastinians are an honorable people who would respond in kind. sort of like they are doing today.

the saddest thing about this situation is that mediated reality does not include this point of view. so many people, like the "good germans" during wwii, keeping silent. afraid of being labeled antisemite i guess. i'm not and never have been. but fair is fair.

on a lighter note check out Robot Wisdom Weblog. concise, direct, current, informative. what "the news" could be.

3.25.2

made it back from Meher Baba Southeast Gathering in Toccoa Ga. late last night. i camped out for 3 nights, very cold, below freezing. great setting, river, rocks, mountains. trees just begining to bud out. very relaxing, timely break for me, enjoyed both mehera and ursula's talks, thought the guy who played jimi hendrix on a ukulele was outa sight. a lot of old and new friends. stopped on way back in jackson county where i lived when the earth was cooling and had pleasant visit with old friends john and cookie for the first time in a veeeery long time.