got back from quick trip downhill - mountain - to see kids and grand kids. above is picture of natalie delivering the grand finale of xmas melody. it was a short but pleasant visit.

Out along the highway
There’s work that’s being done
Heavy dancing gases
Playing with the sun

Another ageless darkness
In the parking lot
Shadows shouting chrome:
Another evening shot

Down along the river bend
It’s always Friday night
When the south wind blows real good
You know there’ll be a fight

Underneath the boardwalk
Lost lovers contemplate
The missing moon and stars
They thought that they could make

“which world?” asked the ticket master
behind his missing throne
“any world but this one”
replied the message on the phone

Outside the winds were howling
They blow that way you know
When you get there tell them
That I’m the one who told you so

Discourse in hybrid harmony
No longer takes the chance
The open door stands asleep
Dreaming words that dance

The far plateau you thought you knew
Is well placed in this mess
Must have been the misplaced map
Or else a lucky guess

The clouds they are outrageous
No laughs at all tonight
Relatively pointless
The moon shines it’s delight

As we tiptoed through the forest
Peculiar plants were glowing
Like someone’s smile we know
And couldn’t help enjoying

Microscopic biscuits
Had long been bird’s delight
They huddled like the seashore
Retreating from last night

Avoid the void they said
Standing tall and straight
When the elevator stopped
They didn’t hesitate

Every night the light forgets
The shadows amber glow
If I wasn’t in a hurry
I’d be just as slow

The beast meanwhile was loose
Events were overflowing
Annoying nonreflection
Kept anyone from knowing

“so long” yelled the hobo
sliding down a trance
without a detached head
He never had a chance.

---

cleaning up files, came upon this piece of cyberdoggeral.

found out that my old friend bill wasson died recently. we knew each other since 1955 on and off. thank you for being a friend bill.

From Pocket to Stage, Music in the Key of iPhone - NYTimes.com

From Pocket to Stage, Music in the Key of iPhone - NYTimes.com: "Professor Wang said he would like to democratize the process of making music, so that anyone with a cellphone could become a musician. “Part of my philosophy is people are inherently creative,” he said. “It’s not just people who think of themselves as artists.”"

yeah i know i ended daily blog postings but thought i'd post this (very) recent foto of myself. new computer i am slowly getting together. space problems (don't you hate space problems) dictate that i rearrange entire living module to do this.

terminus of daily blog. at the recent blogarama, after gordon mentioned me as the longest running blog in aville, someone asked "what does he find to write about?"

the answer is for the last few years, nothing much. it has become all images. so i'm pulling the plug on daily postings. might add something from time to time that signifies something.

the action will transfer to modernpeasant.com where i will add a category of fresh doo-dads and a way to subscribe to rss feeds, that way when something new shows up you'll know it.

been awhile. i've been working on the gallery, and catching up on what is left of my personality. changed the picture above. better?

today's totem is a classic example of the way i work: hell i can't talk about it. i mean can't, not won't. found a jpeg no idea of when or what, probably scan of watercolor. played with it awhile and this is what i got. i like it.

BTW this is what i will add to the image gallery found at the mothership, modernpeasant.com soon: something like "picture of the day" or "recent work".

picture of jim he took last week here. as usual i have nothing much to report. slowly getting to the point of catching up. then off to chatham county usa.

i urge you to spend some time at this site. organic math. don't read it, check the rendered 3D renderings out.

this is penultimate post to the blog. i have redone image archive and i'll leave the blog up as an archive of a long 7-8 years. go here for new image archive.

from email i got a link to keirsey personality test and took it: seems based on myers-briggs and this is part of the results:

"Conscience looms large for you; in almost any situation, you feel compelled to measure yourself, other people, and the conditions of the environment against your personal morality. You have a tendency to perceive questions of meaning in even trivial matters and to worry about far-flung consequences of your actions. In your ideal job, you are free to pursue depth rather than breadth and quality rather than quantity. You feel rewarded when your projects and daily tasks allow you to immerse yourself in your process as deeply as you "need to" in order to satisfy your inner standards of quality. You are uncomfortable with the notion of authority per se and may avoid leading, as well as being led, either consciously or unconsciously. As you experience them, adhering to fixed roles and rules amounts to an abdication of your responsibility to exercise your conscience."

a little nonsense from last wednesday. a very rough cut.

&

letter i wrote to obama and members of congress friday:

"As a citizen who worked hard for the Democratic Party during the last election I must express to you my disappointment at the manner in which health reform is being stifled by the Republicans.

But even worse is the democratic lack of response to the will of the people.

I am a “liberal progressive” who worked and voted for “change”. That meant the Democratic Party. But the current Health Reform debate and the Democratic Party’s lack of response to the will of the people is eroding this.

There are some things worth more than profit. Open up the process and bite the bullet: whether we personally like it or not, different solutions to problems are called for when what formally worked no longer does. This applies not only to Health Reform but also the continued success of both parties as meaningful entities.

this just in from our intrepid Far East Correspondant:

Among the many wonders and amazing offerings displayed in China Airlines' 174 page glossy “Sky Boutique” in-flight sales magazine is its “B. H. Plus ‘Gran Turismo’ Carbonic Germanium Bracelet,” about which the ad copy says, ‘carbonic germanium design combined with the latest technology from Japan. Each bracelet is equipped with three 99.99% certified germaniums, two 600 gauss magnets, tourmaline and titanium capable of readjusting electron imbalance in the human body. This bracelet continuously emits negative ions found in the forest.’

Germaniums? Why not daffodils or hydrangeas?

And I would have thought that wise forest kings would have expelled negative ions long ago to keep the forests jolly. . .along with morlocks and krell and bucolic poets. Pixie dust is just the ticket for that.

It was also unclear how often you had to take your bracelet back into the forest to find more negative ions. How long does it take for your bracelet to find them? Ten minutes? Two weeks? Or do you have to find them yourself? A person with recently balanced electrons doesn’t have time to just hang out in the forest waiting for his or her bracelet to find some more negative ions, and if you’ve got to find them yourself, why do you need the bracelet? If your electrons become unbalanced due to a lack of local negative ions in your neck of the woods, will you be able to find your way home? And if you have enough time and live close enough to take your bracelet to the forest to find more negative ions, why do you need the bracelet anyway? Particularly the German traveler! Surely there must be ample supplies of both forests-full of negative ions as well as a wealth of germanium there. Magnets are available in toy stores. Tourmalines and titanium should be available. They could all be attached to the vegetable strainer one already wears on one’s head to keep out the bad vibrations from the morlocks, the krell, the CIA mind control projects run by failed bucolic poets.



But Wait! The scrivener scrove too impetuously! There are pages and pages of these ‘natural’ health devices in ‘Sky Boutique’ magazine which I had overlooked. Why, if simplicity of life is the way to good health, these health trinkets will quickly rid your body of unhealthy, unwanted dollars, euros, yens and wens.

Some of the items described have silicon (but no magnets). Some are stainless steel. . .because that’s ‘the best.’ Some reduce the body’s acidity (a sort of Rolaids for the wrist) while others are even acid resistant (as if to imply that with other, non-acid resistant models, the battle against acids might just turn against you in a deadly, mortal sort of way). Some items facilitate blood circulation or soothe sore muscles. Some have bezel-set crystals and mother of pearl.

On another page is the ‘Japanese Camellia Necklace,’ guaranteed to ‘take people’s breath away.’ This item is displayed on a different page than the ‘Cambodian Plastic Head Bag,’ or the ‘Japanese Ninja Garrote’ or the ‘All-American Wash’n’Water Board,’ all three of which also promise the same result as the ‘Japanese Camellia Necklace’.



But enough on that matter. I read this morning that in order to fight the long-term decline in the value of the US dollar, the Department of the Treasury has announced that ‘in order to conform the new reality of a stable, successful euro,’ the US dollar will hereafter be conformed to the euro in name if not in value. Effective January 1, 2010 the US dollar will be called by its new name, the ‘zero’. As of that day the former $100 will be written Z100.

When journalists from the UK’s ‘Independent’ (newspaper) noted that outside North America the numeral ‘0’ is pronounced ‘zed’ and not ‘zero’, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geither cryptically responded, “Yes, and two guineas makes a kilo,” which it does not, since it takes two guineas plus two shillings to make a kilo—as any dolt must know.



Concerning China Airlines, since their rescheduling me required a ten hour lay-over in Taipei airport (one of the seven most boring wonders of the world), I tried to get them to book me to Singapore on some other airline. (Their confidential print-out of my transaction showed that they had made the reschedule and flight change on October 22, the day after I had reconfirmed my booking by telephone, but they didn’t contact me until November 4, the day I departed!) They were willing to ship my body to Singapore on an earlier flight but—no earlier flights were available. And the one they had originally booked me on had indeed been cancelled. Since I had ten hours to wait, they offered to give me a hotel room or a pass to the VIP room. I took the VIP room where I have been for the last six and a half hours drinking tall cool tropical drinks, eating dim sum, sipping double espressos, listening to Elgar and Beethoven gently in the background, watching business drones hacking away at endless spreadsheet matrices on their computers while I write inane tripe, beholden to no one. Except you, my readers, whom I hope have been more cheered by this email than bored or embarrassed. Did I mention the endless bottles of Cognac or 12-year old Scotch sitting on the counter? I’m in the Business Class VIP lounge. In the First Class VIP lounge they probably have reefer and coke in golden bowls. . .for all I know.



The in-flight magazine was interesting, but the best in-flight item I’ve ever seen is the Air Minnesota camo bikini panties. Now who would want those?

yesterday elk mountain parkway with jim. too windy for panorama.

i am still trying to cap and terminate the blog and transfer effort to images for postcards and prints.

and i'm tired of posting "i have nothing to say".

last nite. courtisy of jim jenkins. i did the fingerpaints.

above is DIY HDR lorez done w/ photoshop.

attended blogapalooza last nite in river district. saw a few old friends who i haven't seen in a couple of years.

getting close to retiring this blog. maybe in a few days. enough is enuf.

i puttered, pivoted, procrastinated and let things in general happen on another fall day. started out a little over cast and never too far from it, but balmy, you know. got a not bad 3minutes roughmix while i was wondering around. last night saw old and new friends, a few i have known since '64 i guess. driving back thru the warm dark night, i thoughr about the perfect wrong turns we had made, how the present is hardly here, and we all gather around the expanding universe, alone with the same mystery dream.

bear country, elk mountain yesterday. slight afternoon break with richard. excuse shaky footage etc, was using my trusty old sony dsc-v3. a moment in a very full day.

photo of some geezer sent to me by my sister.
the RPMs are picking up around here. internal glacial movements like ice breaking. rearrangements afoot. remember the ghost dance that flickered into existence around the turn of the (last) century? i feel like something similar is in store for a lot of us. some denouement around the corner. if you have read remembrance of things past - or whatever the new literal translation of the title is - by Proust you may recall the end when after a half century of life the characters attend one more salon and the protagonist is floored by by the gathering, not recognizing his lifetime acquaintances. for a couple of years now i have been saying - glibly i suppose - that that old age is welcome because it is new. sort of a paradox i suppose. i feel like it is an opportunity to be slammed into the realization that the same applies to every second. new, novel, unpredictable, every now is the same now and always a surprise (or it wouldn't be now, but the past we think we experienced).

take a break, lean back, and stream this. album is released today i believe.