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Extracts 3
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| Extracts from the period July 7, 2003 to February 29, 2004 |
| 070203 |
Yes
it is George, he was sitting on a fan (all the birds like sitting on fans,
even when they are oscillating), and I took several shots where he was against
a deep space with little light in it. That one turned out the best.
She and I took it to our respective work machines and put the shot on as
wallpaper. We have been educating the PA hoi polloi about cockatiels. |
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| 070703 |
As
the notice says, the artist gulled two different funding sources out of money
for this, then somehow convinced some local authority that the park would
be ennobled by it. As you can see, it is thrift store furniture covered
inexpertly with cement. Total cost: I trust less than $69.69.
Profit to the artist and friends: a bunch of taxpayer dollars. Ah, but the contrast of environments! the discontinuity as statement! the powerful metaphor instanced by the multidimensional projection of inner worlds to outer ones! Jaded limbic systems re-tuned and coaxed artfully to finer tones. The work is bold, disturbing, psychically charged! AND it is as good a con as I've had foisted on me for, oh, days. As Nelson says in The Simpsons, HA-ha! |
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| 071203 |
As for lengthy writing, I am somewhat
written out for the moment after those two long emails. Sometime when we
are both in the mood, I'd like to pick up where they left off (I think some
of it was just getting interesting), though who knows what these shorter
correspondences will lead to. All things in their season... |
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| 071903 |
Some of this is done on the web via what
is called blogging (web-logging) and some is done by personal sites like
mine, and there are sites that have objective or subjective articles written
by users that are "peer reviewed" for quality. But I have not seen a site
devoted to a combination of commentary and images that is focused mainly
on what happened. ... Her father, in his younger days, was a mule skinner on public roads projects in Missouri. He always spoke with respect of mules, as compared to horses. It seems the mules inherit a better sense than horse sense from the donkey side. Easier riding too. More sure-footed. Won't eat themselves to death, nor, for that matter, will they work themselves to death either. ... I have told you of the two giant cats that live in the "junk" store next door. I returned from my photo jaunt last night and decided to pop in to take some cat shots. The folks that run the shop seem to feel that of course their cats are photogenic. The cats were friendly, but disinterested in photography -- I had to hop around quite some to get decent angles… ... I am doing image chores: deleting unwanted images preparatory to burning the bi-monthly CD, printing "contact sheets" for the books of images so I can find images among the thousands , finishing the latest Photo Page on the Larch web site. Also am slowly editing some text to put on the Writings page. While I do this, I will bounce over here to this email and add to it. I expect this to be quite a disjointed epistle with themes du minute. ... So, retired! What a nice little word indeed. Having labored in the vineyards, you set aside the importunements of the world and are free to do whatever you wish, at least so I hope for you. Perhaps the world can find others to harry and leave you be. Time to tend your own garden and grow what you please. Looking around, I see that many bury themselves in the concerns of others to foster a self-obliterating storm of short-term emergencies that do distract, certainly, but do not enrichen the inner person, nor does it really give from the bounty of the self to others anything but the ordinary. As the I Ching so cutely says, it furthers to have a goal. Thinking about the self and its necessarily lonely efforts to exist as an integral being, an island (apologies to John Donne for disagreeing) in the sea of currents and storms -- pathetically Romantic the notion be, it seems still worth while. The great mass of us all, the endless emergencies of the news, the cultures defining and confining, the sheer ridiculous currency of varying notions of what is to be paid attention to, the proposition that we each are significant insofar as we are picking up the HerdNet channel and are swaying to its beat -- these are the surround-sound givens of our lives. Global village? Global trashheap! So, the quieter virtues are needed. Patience is a big one. Patience is needed to listen to the inner voices of all the selves we have been, and still are somewhere within. Forgiveness is a good idea too, and gentleness, and fondness play their parts. We are all crusted over and scarred with the lashings and marionette strings that have been used to dance us up and down the aisles. But the mighty group is a dumb beast and all it takes to defeat it is turning quietly away to the far more coherent universe within. When we re-establish the inner dialogue and develop our own resources, then we can emerge to take the good that other individuals create, picking and choosing as we go. ... You are right. Writing is really the best means of expression for the very reason most people shy away from it these days -- it takes time, like your songs do. In taking the time, slowing down, not writing as a distasteful duty, but as a means of getting back in touch with oneself, the self that is prior to, and superior to, the harried slave of the mundane world that is our public self. Odd, isn't it to imagine some inner Simon Legree whomping on the inner poet to sweat out another bale of cotton for...whom? Who de massa? Makes me want to break out in some mournful song back in the bayou just to think about it :^D Not to say we must always expect high art from our writing, that would be another trap, but still, sometimes it happens naturally. And I think it must be good for one's artist self in other areas when we take that time to say what has happened to us, or what we are doing or thinking, or respond to the writings of others... … The skills learned are just plain fun in themselves and enjoyable to pass on to friends. I may have to get serious eventually and focus more on the skills. I have just ordered PhotoPlus 6.5, which is very cheap, as I have used PhotoPlus for a while. It helps with the "drawing in" of textures to cover over some visual element that is distracting. I use several of its tools, but the cloning tool has especially been very helpful. ... After seeing such miseries, I thought: the permutations of the human heart... |
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| 072703 |
Is eternity made up of units of rebate returns? … We are both playing with stitching images together, so here is my first actual panorama. I had to adjust the tones of two of the three original images to get this to work moderately well. It is a scene from the park, from the middle of the bridge: |
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| 072803 |
I
have found the web site to have some of the same effect on me -- it has its
own demands that force me beyond my normal scope. While I, or you,
can provide the inner tension of ideas that leads to creativity, it is subject
to defocusing by the raucous importunements of the surrounding cacophony,
where an objective effort toward a goal is more impervious. I have been reading in a book on the 17th Century Japanese writer Matsuo Basho (cost 50 cents at local Baptist thrift store) about haiku, of which I have read much in years gone by, and about haibun, that I knew nothing about. Haibun is defined as an essay written in the spirit of haiku, and I find myself attracted somewhat to the idea. The essay has always impressed me as a literary form, but I can imagine shorter, more lyrical and personal versions than is usual. Will have to think about that. And about its relation to images, of course. Some of my commentary on the web site is already tending in that direction... … Alas, so many are allergic to so many things these days -- it is becoming a plague. I agree with these owners who feel this is our store, if you are allergic to something here, don't come in, and we're sorry to lose you. … Even so, it seems it is the will that is being guided... … That's so. Finding out you don't die from the feared thing helps to transcend it. This was a point in the novel The Horse Whisperer. The mentally damaged horse finally had to endure what it did not think it could endure, and the process of healing was begun. … I keep hearing that [losing smell and taste as one ages], but I have my doubts. Kids routinely eat and chew raw, powerful flavors that adults think are somewhat sickening. If we lose our ability to detect the flavors, then I would think adults would be attracted to even more outrageous flavors than kids are, instead of to ever more subtle ones. … …but both of us are scrutinizing a large number of images in a critical way, looking for something. This process is training our perception of images, making us less a passive observer, and thinking more as an engaged participant in the creative process. … Yes, we humans are "allergic" to too little happening and to too much. Too little stimulus and the mind starts to retreat, but too much and we are the victim of a raging environment, like squirrels in a forest fire. Goldilockslike, we need it to be "just right". … The changes [of pioneer era] in so small a time in America are stupefying -- not only did we expand across the land, but the Industrial Revolution was played out at the same time. Change on top of change. … Good. These skills will serve you well, as my developing ones will serve me. And we learn so much by playing with the tools, and setting little enjoyable goals, rather than relying on rote learning. … As long as you retain the copywrite and re-printing rights -- who knows what the future will bring? … Yes, the definition of what is music has been somewhat strained these last years. Some of the so-called music has all the soul of a drop-forge hammer. Are these listeners actually human? Are we generating monsters? Aside from the manifold ugliness, the machine-beat is not made for real people, but for mechanical beasts in human form -- ah, well, perhaps it's good for business. (Feels good to grouch once in a while...) … I am going to be doing something along those lines [featuring trees] on the web site eventually. … Seems like one good thing engenders another :-) … I've heard about the floods and naming some counties as disaster areas. Perhaps this is the beginning of seven "fat" years, but nature often overdoes things... … She [grandmother] was an amazing and powerful person. I hope you and she had some good talks. … [Your cookbook project] sounds like fun. A thought: perhaps the recipes could have some personal commentary with each of them -- as Damon Runyon wrote: "a story goes with it" and might make the results even more palatable? … The color laser printers are coming down in price -- soon we'll be able to be our own printers as well as publishers. … Most computer instruction books are padded with copy straight from the software publisher, technical stuff in long lists. Functions are taught in an isolated manner, not as part of a goal-oriented project. The reason is simple: it is easier to do the former and quickly create a fat, expensive book. Much more useful would be a series of projects, from simple to complex, that proceeded in a coherent manner. Even though this is obvious, the shelves fill up with the list kind of book anyway. … How I wish that were true [being a genius]. No, I don't have a strong mathematical bent, or a musical one, for that matter. My gifts, such as they are, are mostly verbal and intuitive. I have a better than average visual design sense, I think, but lack the eidetic powers that give some artists such an edge. Most of what I achieve is the result of hard effort on top of intuitive perception. Over all that is a wide peripheral view that is good for balance and humor, and a love of truth. And sometimes I am visited with an anger that shadows generosity, but I come back into sunlight eventually. … It may be over, but what is anything lost? No one likes to be taken for granted, and without communication and fellow feeling, relationships are sterile. |
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| 080303 |
I
have been meandering in about ten different books for a while. Sometimes
that happens, other times I inhale a book in a short time -- moods. ... Your quote from wherever "In the 60’s people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal" is both funny and all too true. Lots of folks on drugs these days, it has expanded far beyond what used to be understood as medical need. Eventually, there will be little need for illegal drugs... ... Heard something on NPR about the government changing the rules of the game for treatment of workers. The game is to redefine someone's job so that someone has to comply with mandatory overtime, etc. Odd we are well into the Machine Age, but still work like Trojans (the Homeric Trojans I mean). ... I worked (played) on a 360 degree panorama today. It is from a series of 7 or 8 shots I took from the center of the bridge at the park. The process of linking the images together is called "stitching" in the program I am using. Because I didn't use a tripod and do it according to Hoyle, plus apparently I have some karma to burn off, the process was lengthy and involved a lot of drawing and cloning and working to match tones, etc. … Figuring it out as he goes… |
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| 080903 |
Well, all things must take in what they need to survive, so it is hard to get away from money, no matter what the philosophy. ... The general idea seems attractive: a place of culture in a natural setting, where one can get away from the rat race to an advanced culture AND have the benefit of a more natural surround. I would guess this ideal is always threatened in proportion to the breadth of its appeal to greater numbers of credit card bearers. However it works out, I imagine this is not for the hoi poloi. ... Meanwhile I continue my activities -- mainly reading and photo manipulation. I am currently reading at a dozen books, including The River by Gary Paulson, a book on Matsuo Basho, the Japanese poet, a collection of Scottish poetry, a book on the intelligences of animals, a book on the early North American frontier, one summing up the recent major scientific discoveries, historical atlas, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and essays by Edward Fitzgerald, various humor, odd news articles, etc. I finished the Paulson book which was a follow-up of his very successful Hatchet, a story of wilderness survival by an early teens boy. Also recently finished was Westward, Ha! by the humorist S. J. Perlman. The Fitzgerald essay is slow going, even though done in dialogue form. The news about economics is interesting: economic recovery without job growth (actually job loss, with low-level jobs replacing them). Question: who will buy the Niagara of stuff when all real jobs have gone overseas or been replaced by machines? |
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| 081003 |
As
to the background of this email, it is an image of a bit of pine bark that
has been seriously modified and rearranged -- the goal being to give something
pleasing and recognizable, but not interfering with reading. This turns
out to be harder than one would think, partly because one wants no distracting
line where the images meet, and partly to the problem of a boringly repetitive
pattern. The latter issue is often solved with a cloth or paper pattern
where repetition is expected and acceptable. … Eating rotten stuff and not knowing it is abnormal. Taste is of the four basics: salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. Most of flavor comes from the sense of smell. It is good to question authority when it is contradicted by one's own experience or reasoning. Adults are able to enjoy subtle flavors that kids can't perceive, or at least cannot appreciate. And kids often like strong flavors that are gross to an adult, including some sour or sweet things. So, bottom line: there is more to the story than just "as we grow older our sensory cells die, therefore..." What the rest of the story is I don't know. … Mathematics... I have many times had "attacks of math" where I would be wandering around in mental geometric forms, or visions of physical relationships, and become fascinated with the mathematical relationships. I told you of my measuring off the universe in powers of ten from smallest thing to largest, and in working on an understanding of size levels and what effects size had on the "occupants" of that level, i.e. how the environment of size controls the nature of interactions. One small example is the surface film of water -- a minor thing to us, but a formidable force to small water creatures. Anyway, for me, math is tied to considerations of the real world, or to abstractions that are akin to Plato's forms. I am attracted to the speculative side of math, and to the description of form, but written formulas leave me cold, and I think I am missing a chunk of neurons that deal with those. As for music, I do enjoy it, that is I sometimes put it on and listen closely, mostly folk music. For about five years with the book store, I listened most of the day to classical music. I finally grew more and more critical of it, and would sometimes make fun of what grew to seem musical clichés. Some pieces remained transcendentally beautiful. A very big thing with me is not having to listen to other peoples' music or much of any noise they care to make. I have become, I suppose, hyper-sensitive to it, and react with irritation when someone foists his or her favorite noise on me. Sound, unlike light vibrations, are hard or impossible to block out. When someone blasts some so-called music into my space, it is an invasion of my peace of mind that I cannot escape. People used to have a sense of consideration of the feelings of others, but not any more. Moderns seem to think they have a right to do as they please, even if it affects others badly, and is no imposition, but a right. However a request to turn the music off IS an imposition. A fear of mine, not completely irrational, is of committing myself to living in a particular place (say a house I bought) and finding out the neighbors like to take turns loudly playing polka music on one side and rap or hip-hop on the other. Instant hell. … Good, a lot of people read cook books for the pleasure of it, and the more stories the better. I can imagine a fictional family in the mix, where different people have interesting opinions on food, and who bring back recipes from adventures. By the way, some retirement day, I may do some research on the modern food supply and the depredations of the large food market. I don't need a loyalty card, as they call them, but the opposite. That [sparrow shot] was taken at full optical, not digital, zoom, about 7 power, then the image was further cropped. I have always worked to get portraits of the animals I see at the park, rather than just scenes with small beings in them, but it isn't easy. That is the best image of a house sparrow I've gotten, though a few others are fairly good. I have one of a baby house sparrow that I will put on the web site soon, along with this one of the adult male. … OK, yes you had told some of this, as I now remember. I remember a radio account by a famous author -- Updike? -- who suffered from a debilitating depression for several years, then. while he was listening to a piece of classical music, it left him, and didn't return. In reverse, I read that the father of William and Henry James went into a room a reasonably contented man, and came out blighted in mind, incapable of any happiness. The human mind, like "my father's house", has many mansions and byways. … Your easy affection with this particular part of all the great mysteries is fun to know of. … In earlier, more leisurely years, the photo album was a big deal in lots of households. People took it for granted the trajectories of their lives were of significance, and so were all the people connected to them, the family itself a major entity. What a change in a few years, people throw the past away and don't care, unless Oprah or someone says genealogy is a kicky thing to do. Weird. Remember the ideas Tradition directed, Inner directed, Other directed? As I remember, this is from the late Fifties, can't quite remember the author, though it's on the edge of my mind. Anyway, Other Directed is here big time. … I have my eye on a tree to feature on the web site. It is a fir of some kind, must do research, but the cones are big as large bananas and they weep with resin. Birds drill into the bark, and the tree bleeds a clear sap to heal itself. Speaking of trees, the powers that be cut down the courthouse trees. It all looks so bare! When I first saw it, I was sad-stricken with the loss. … I have done this sort of thing too, on a smaller scale, starting with simple, easily accessible works, and gradually getting back into reading. Several times in fact. It seems that in reading and in writing are our truer selves, and after the shocks of life, it takes time and practice to reinhabit the inner rooms of ourselves. I am thankful they do not go away, it is we who leave for a while, and return. … Good luck on the grant request. I once had a thought that some retired person who was capable of grant writing could do a lot of good for the many little museums and societies that struggle in towns everywhere. … By coincidence, the term Pura Vida has popped up here. I cannot verify that la vida means life in Spanish, but the term pura vida means pure life or great! or awesome! or something of the sort in Costa Rica. Research on this might be interesting. As to going to Mexico to help poor folks, fine, but plenty of poor folks here, I would think, and don't know why American youth traipse around the world to do good, when good is in need here at home. This opinion of mine has a history. I remember asking an assertive Hare Krishna type why his organization was funneling millions to India, when needy Americans were right here. It did give him something to think about -- after all it was he and thousands like him out there on the hot streets hustling money... … You'll know best about the journals [and group participation], though I note that he did what he did not in a group, but alone. By now, you probably have a feeling for what I think about groups. And you have your own experiences to guide you in the matter -- so far things seem to be flowing your way, might as well enjoy it and keep on going. … There is a moth that lays eggs in bird seed, so we freeze ours overnight to kill the eggs. … The search for the ideal foreground and background colors goes on and on. What seems OK today, like your gray, may seem to boring, or a little off, or even hard to see tomorrow. The combination I'm using now is my best shot at the moment -- enough texture in the background to satisfy an eye tired of plainness, and a largish, easy-to-read font in a dark color. But who knows what a restless visual mind might come up with? |
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| 081303 |
Say,
you do get around! [Bosnia-Herzegovina] I had vague thoughts
of you milling about the middle and western US of A and there you are in
a spot fated to have the living crap kicked out of it every so often.
Getting the two emails from you caused a bout of Internet searching on things
Sarajevan and I found some amazing stuff from the last decade or so -- I
knew it was bad there in the siege, but the Swiss-cheezing of so many buildings
must be sobering as you walk about the place. ... Send more from your roamings. I will respond to your two missives in more detail later. I remember your BMW you got for cheap by hauling out of a pond; maybe you could find a digital camera in a well, or something, and sent images of your singing nanny adventures. Remember "peculiar travel instructions..."? |
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| 081603 |
Thought
you'd like to look at this web page. It is the result of a person's
interest in the language of a particular time, the American Revolution, approximately.
The list was compiled from the writings of one person who wrote "naturally”. |
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| 081703 |
Very
sorry my instructions were not clear enough, but it is hard to write instructions
that do not assume some knowledge and flexibility on the part of the user.
By this I mean it is limiting to always assume the user knows nothing --
one then must exhaustively give every motion and click. You will see
what I mean by the quantity of prose below. [Long, l-o-o-ng explanation followed] Whew, … Thought I’d wander in your prose for a while and respond as thoughts occur. Yes, I believe it. Why not?, east coast US, familial duties, packing boxes, totin' n' haulin' one minute -- next minute wandering about in Sarajevo with a twenty-month old person -- why, it must happen all the time. As to the timescape of a tiny young anthropoid, well, I bet that its time is drawn out like that of a person going at 99% of the speed of light -- v-e-r-y s-l-o-w compared to adult homo snickersapiens time. Thus he is spending a leisurely week in the park to one of your afternoons. Fortunately, he is sleeping days at a stretch, so gives you an hour here and there to commune with pigeons. Do their bright red eyes convey any messages? They lack some of the muscles of voice control some birds have, but make the most of what they have. I notice they seem surprised at a lot -- they obviously have the makings of speculative philosophers, though if they taught college, males would no doubt be arrested for hanky-pankying the coeds. … No problem on excess expectations, I write even to people who spend words like misers and am fairly faithful about it, though I do get a little grumpier every year. Whereas in your case, the conveyance of information comes naturally from you in a personal and creative style that is good stuff. Just a tad rare sometimes. ... Naw, you'll be dragooned to Cameroon, or .shanghaied to, er, Hong Kong. Perhaps it is your destiny to travel to weird places and write in Internet cafes... Should be some good songs to come of it. To bad your twelve-string won't fold down to the size of a harmonica. ... This reminded me of our friend’s letters. He writes to me of manager angst in the midst of interminable meetings, adding in some articles from the Times (either one), and fires it off to me. Efforts to establish an actual dialog have been somewhat thwarted thus far. I retaliate by sending him images he can't seem to open (the modern equivalent of the long work-incompatible fingernails of Chinese nobility is not knowing how to use the machinery, including computers :^). ... Sleep -- we still don't know the why of it. Sometimes when I walk along and marvel at the detailed & colored 3-D world my brain makes and I amazingly walk in, I think what a system! what an effort of the nervous system! -- and maybe that is why we sleep, just to power down and attend to other things. … I don't have any idea of the specifics there, but have long considered tolerance to be unnatural to man, based on the history I've read. Only after long years of hacking and hewing each other does the idea of knocking off and returning to baby- and money-making sound reasonable. Either religion or ethnic difference alone can be the basis of hostility, and both together are almost guaranteed to do so. Subtract NATO and the US and the Serbs would probably have succeeded in wiping out the non-us people, or some other partisan nation might have gotten into the act, or maybe several such, for a really big kill-fest. As you said indirectly, even 6 centuries made no difference when the crunch came. In the US, we've had so many things to distract us from that sort of reaction, but there is always the possibility lurking there in the background. Your idea of BIH being a focus of extra-national and ideological weirdness is thought-provoking. Germany, I've thought, went mad in the period 1918-1933, especially when it was hit with the second economic breakdown. Can an entire country go nuts? Can a culture become paranoid and delusional? … Sorry [about muslim pigeons], pigeons have the religion of the visible surface, and a rich surface it is too. … Maybe we can give them our work ethic -- which is getting pretty thick indeed -- and we can take up the more European arts of cafe talk, art, beautiful buildings, and long walks in the country. … Don't know, people keep talking of kids and hope, but the old world keeps being reborn. Still, McLuhan talked of re-wiring, maybe better wiring? I recommend ducks, bumblebees, thistle flowers, and the reddish tips of growing sumac. |
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| 081803 |
Thank
you for the kind words. I AM rather wonderful, now that you mention
it. It is great to have such a perceptive correspondent :^D (but sweatheart?) However my regiment of literary analysts report that close scrutiny of your epistle reveals no actual verification of having viewed the Bridge360-Smaller.jpg file. Their 400-page report suggests a cautious approach when dealing with a canny sister. … The great strength of the Histomap is the ease of seeing what else was happening during a particular event of an epoch. It is context that is missing in the study of history generally -- the atomizing of history into disconnected facts that cannot be appreciated or remembered. In fact, I can easily imagine a series of small history books called the Context Series, with each giving connections in time and in historical significance. |
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| 082503 |
This
practice exercise gives me ideas, as do all new image skills. This
is a GIF image, that has a transparent layer capability -- perfect for floating
on web pages. ... No TV, so don't watch anything (though I did buy a used DVD disk of Sean Connery in "Outland" to test my computer's ability to play movies. It worked OK.) I may get one sometime during retirement. … Thanks for the recommendation,… but I made a quiet vow some 30 years ago not to watch Holocaust dramas any more -- I realized the "container" in me for the Nazi-Jewish tales was full to overflowing. These things come along every 3 or 4 years to have whatever effect they are to have, and then we have a new one. The number of possible stories of man's inhumanity to man are very great and I have long since absorbed my quota on this particular one. There is no patent on misery. ... But speaking of Jews, I ran across an oddity on the web -- some Egyptian professor is trying to sue the Jews for the theft of tons of gold during the Exodus! He cites the Old Testament and says that if Jews think it alright to use it as the basis of claims today, then others can do the same. It's a strange old world, to be sure. Maybe we'll all be devoured by lawyers... … Yes, old pals are hard to replace. I still miss pets, such as a cat named Joe Blow, and a cockatiel named Sweet Belle Pepper, that I had years ago, and remember them alive in the good times. The loss still has a bitter taste. Some truth in the saying old age is not for wimps, the losses pile up, the regrets grow, but on the other hand, there are more good memories as well... … I have been reading, among other things, a book by Denis Flanagan called Flanagan's Version. He edited Scientific American for years, so he, though not a scientist, has a good overview of science and technology. I find it useful once in a while to seek out an overview of some topic to refresh my "sense of the whole", without which I feel lost in the data. I like some of his surprising facts too, such as animal foods are about twenty times richer in food value than plant foods (this in the context of technology of hunting and cooking). Photos have been taking up some of my time of late, besides the usual image-taking and manipulation -- I have been going through a tutorial in the new graphics program. … Might as well make the second part 40 years, then you'll have to live to a ripe old age to accomplish it :-) … Noise in general, and music in particular, are some of the viler things about the modern world. A lot of younger people simply cannot do without the incessant beat and yowl of their musical (imagined) peers and fellow denizens in the hip parallel universe inhabited by vaguely downtrodden, but deeply insightful and sensitive persons like themselves. This is bad enough in a lot of ways, but now with the cult of youth so rampant, folks who are old enough to know better, are cranking up the boomboxes to relive their vanished youth. Whatever the loony rationale, it's TOO DAMN LOUD. Grr, mutter,... … I can imagine recipes and personalities could sort of match, at least there could be a personal characteristic that would lead a person to be attracted to certain kinds of dishes, or interests or hobbies that would tend to lead to certain discoveries. … Yes, they belatedly gave reasons, lame ones I thought. But in typical administrative fashion, they did the deed first, without discussion, then tossed out some bones for the people to gnash at. … I can't name anyone I know who has read absolutely continually all their lives. Yet there are those, some were customers, who may have read light literature such as romances or westerns, for much of their lives. Still, I am not sure about it... My own reading comes and goes in long waves, with very small chunks where I read nothing at all. It is probably always a sign of being screwed up when it does happen. … So be it. This is an area in which to follow your own intuition. So far, so good, and onward. |
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| 090103 |
Enough
is enough. There will be financial squeezes for the rest of life, but
at least I will not have to deliver myself to the mental institution that
is the everyday world of work. Strange we think of ourselves as a free
people, but most of us are the slaves of a sort of artificial necessity.
True, the Simon Legrees have been given a gloss of pseudo humanity, but the
sheer badness of management, the lack of clarity and purpose, the lack of
real heart in the performance of work, of communication and of cooperation
is dispiriting. For so many, the daily efforts come so far below what
a hopeful youth envisioned, it is a sort of slow-motion tragedy. It
is too bad it was ill health that gave you your freedom those years ago,
but freedom was the silver lining in those dark clouds. Graphics! A lot of exploration these last few days -- I am adding to my knowledge and experience. A long way to go, but some of what can be done with layering is coming clearer. I have found ways to save images that wouldn't have passed muster otherwise. Maybe these skills will help later if I pursue the creation of images directly on the computer. I imagine a graphics pad would help this process, and I may invest in one of those eventually. ... Thanks for the good image of the blackout -- that "bite" taken out of eastern U.S. was dramatic. The price tag for fixing the power grid that I heard was some super-astronomic amount ($100 billion was it?). It is one of the nagging truths that as the seedling bends, so grows the tree. Decisions made generations ago that worked for smaller systems, don't necessarily work when the population expands to nearly 270 million people. I always have been curious about that sort of thing. It is easy to assume that bigger will be better and we often hear about economies of scale, etc. But there is a poor understanding of the integrity of the system, the inner processes that may come unglued by expansion. I remember one tale of "systems analysis" that went wrong by forgetting "Mrs. Brown", a secretary, who by her nature kept everyone informed and moving along toward the common goals. When they left her out of the new "improved" pattern of interaction, the company began to mysteriously fail. But even if the plan is sound, management can often be relied upon to damage the processes by (pick any or all) indifference, lack of follow-through, lack of communication, power-oriented secrecy, MIA (call the golf course), or self-aggrandizing meetings, ego, insensitivity, morale-sapping utterances, hiring incompetent persons to avoid looking bad, ..., so many many failures. ... Have finished a book by Richard Adams -- The Iron Wolf, a collection of well-told myths (he sets the telling of each tale in a believable context). And I read a Tony Hillerman book that was sent to us, The Sinister Pig. That was a very fast read, and I won't say anything about it because you'll no doubt read it yourself. Still nibbling at other books. Odd how one inhales some books in a rush, and others seem to want to be read slowly over a period of time. ... As August image-taking is over, I am beginning the long process of choosing images for the August Photo Page. I look at the many shots so much, and pick, turn down, choose, and unchoose, that I have somewhat strong feelings about which images to show and why. So the commentary usually goes fairly fast. The whole process takes quite a while, but it is good practice in something hard to name -- image analysis, I guess. Exercises the esthetic muscles. ... Too much agony, not enough ecstasy. Onward to more productive years, this time away from the modern manager (who couldn't manage a snake through a drainpipe). .. Apropos that, I've read we have now more than 5 million Americans who have had prison experience, and the percentage of Americans of whom that is true will rise. Sounds like a nice seed for an underclass of Unemployables, who need to be subsidized as anti-breakage insurance. Jobs continue to be lost here in central PA, many heading South. Except those so-and-sos in Mexico are asking for a living wage, so the jobs are fleeing Mexico for China! Ya don't have to be a weatherman, to know ... there will be too few real wage earners to support the economy. The economic bombs that hit California and, what, Washington? are no doubt harbingers of fun and games to come. (Is it a law that politicians have to issue more financial promises than the future can redeem? And, if you are in a musing mode, tell me why governments are not allowed to prepare for lean years, a la Joseph in the Bible.) Next time you are at one of those conferences where supposedly real expertise occurs, why not ask what happens to the economy when the machines, or the Chinese, are doing most of the real work, and the rest are flunkies or managers or the Unemployables. Or is there not any longer a link between money and real productivity? If the answer is no, then I guess we have achieved a state where the distinction between fantasy and reality has been revoked, and we can all swoop down ski slopes babbling into cell phones, or lie about on grassy hillsides trying to see something in the clouds but the face of Ronald McDonald. |
|
| 090703 |
I should have invented the paperclip or something of the sort. … Seriously, time grows more important the older one becomes, until the day it becomes irrelevant. All the retirement plans people make to loll on Floridian golf courses, or sip mai tais on their palace veranda, is a sacrifice of the present for hopes of the future. Many probably lose their ability to enjoy life in the process of slogging their way to those days of ease. |
|
| 090803 |
Yet that person’s communication is not without interest, like notes from Hell... ... The Photo Page was finished last night -- 21 images. That took most of 2 days to accomplish, but the feeling is good. I will continue to look for errors in the page, usually grammatical ones or the odd typo, and fix them in one fell swoop. The choosing of the images takes real mental effort -- e.g. on this photo page I selected a first set of around 63 images out of maybe 240 or so. Then I worked on them all to get them to a "best state". Finally I deleted images (painful) from the working folder until I had a final count of 21 images. By this time I knew those images intimately. Even so, the process of adding them to a new photo page, and writing the comments took hours Adding a photo page means also to retire one, due to disk space limits, so goodbye to an old Photo Page. … Yes, trailers give one the uneasy feeling of being followed. More than one poor soul has been crushed by his own high velocity crap on wheels, I imagine. Yet I have made a moderately solemn vow not to again lose my own stuff as I have done. I have spent years looking for something, maybe a tool, that parted from me long ago. One always thinks the thing will be replaced, but often it never happens for one reason or another. Books are another thing that often do not return, once lost. ... Once upon a time I had a workshop/painting studio, as I have always wished, but that was a long time ago. Who knows, maybe again. It is not easy to focus on anything very long without a place for it, and the tools and ambience that go along with the making of just about anything. Well, you are a builder... … When we met there, I had been married, traveled across the country, lived in San Francisco, lived a life of interesting poverty, attended the dregs of beat poetry readings, been steeped in the atmosphere of the bohemian life, including a round or two of drugs, been divorced, reborn in the Midwest, traveled to Monterey, Mexico, lived on the edge of Hollywood, been stranded in the desert, hitchhicked two thousand miles twice... For all that, I was still a kind of naive Ohio kid, still am to a degree. ... Government giving back -- nice. I headed for a government-paid job like a heat-seeking missile for that very reason. When we owned our own business, we were plundered by governments with all tentacles active. I got some back, and am more than ready to continue the process. ... If he has not become indistinguishable from a lichen covered oak tree, he would have a lot to add. If you think that sounds unlikely, maybe, but he always could surprise people. Of the top dozen regrets, one is that we are not in touch with him -- too good to lose. … Your comments reminded me that travel is often a good way to temper idealistic American youth taught to decry all things American by those kindly old academic lefties (some left-over from socialism/communism). When said youth view the often nasty, parochial, or rigid, places of the earth, the old U.S. of A. comes off not so bad. That said, I will add I can faintly sense the doors of Mordor creaking open somewhere. Something impending, some rough beast slouching toward somewhere to be born. Brrr. Probably to do with all those billions of simians... … A monument to collect your thoughts -- hmm. Lines from a Dylan song Shelter From The Storm, "Hunted like a crocodile... Ravaged in the corn... Blown out upon the trail..." Great stuff. … Interesting. Even psychological investigations on a short schedule. I can see the ad: "Overwhelmed at work? Just step into the can and blow your mind -- be refreshed and back at your cube in moments!" Gad, it's been years since I indulged. Hadda do all the psychological rearranging the hard way. Would not turn down a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, though. All my regrets are getting long in the tooth, perhaps I need some new ones. ... I took several photos of this spider, but the conditions were poor and none of the shots was satisfying. But I felt I could have spent hours watching the spider work on its huge web. One may think of them as being rather slow and fussy about their building, but this one was racing around the anchor strands, and often returning to the white center, or toward it. The spider was obviously using its own dimensions, its reach, to lay out the work -- spiders the measure of all things, eh Mr. Pope? Let us doff our caps in respect of some little flying thing, possibly whistling to itself as it goes about its affairs, but not seeing the web approaching fast. Yet I can imagine the spider grumbling to itself if the former whistler is small and dry -- what a waste of a good web! … Some Aegean island in the moonlight, Athenian ships again rowing among the rocks, amphorae of wine not yet watered, goat cheese, olives, horses cresting in the waves, poetry by men with red spears, some pasts live forever... |
|
| 091303 |
Image
taking has been crumby the last two weeks, but the weather has overdone the
overcast and dimmed down on photo days. Also, I think I overdid the
concentrated effort on the last Photo Page, nuking a few personal neurons.
Will take it a bit easier in the future, I think. ... Lots of weird politics and odd news lately, but life too short to get excited about simian power struggles... The thing with the explosive collar and "go forth, my slave, and rob a bank" or whatever it was is just too strange. |
|
| 092103 |
One
employee who left about 3 months ago for a better job was beaming like a
light house -- she was radiant with relief at moving on. It was a bit
strange to see, as while most people would have felt just the same, there
was an effect like, "So long you poor laborers in the salt mines, I'm off
to sugar mines at last” . And, responding a bit to your earlier comments regarding work, I understand the value of one liking one's work. Yet it is probably the case that only one or two percent of workers would continue doing the same thing if they did not have to work to live. My sense is that time grows in importance as one ages, and, assuming one has a mental life and other interests, the desire grows geometrically with the passage of time to turn one's attention to the more important matters. So that is the background to my comments about overdoing the business of staying in the game for future financial advantage. Securing the basis for a reasonable and dignified existence is good, but at some point that need is met, and staying beyond that time is because of the more negative emotions -- fear of other's opinions, or an acquisitive drive that is too great for the real need, or whatever. (The application of these, and all such comments, are, as always, present company excepted, of course :-) Is it not so that pay and retirement schemes are manipulative of people? Are these things not golden chains that bind many to a wearisome expenditure of the days of their years? Curious how these things evolve in nations to have the effect of controlling human behavior regardless of political philosophy. Manufacturing is now down to maybe 16 percent of the GNP, farming at 1.5 percent of the work force -- of the rest of labor, how much of the work is truly necessary? Will a time come when the work force could be cut in half with no loss of real productivity? (Has it already happened?) Once the mind manages to wrap around that question, other questions crowd in, like, can we adapt to this? Would society break down, or would we create higher goals for ourselves that are not economic in nature? Too bad, I think, that we will almost certainly have to live through decades of very painful changes, before we accept that the human species can satisfy material needs such that the greater part of life is the pursuance of non-economic ends. End of commentary on work. … The Sinister Pig was a nice reminder of TH's books -- I have read most of the Navaho mysteries up to about 1997, and now two of the later ones. The Wailing Woman was an especially good mystery, though I was surprised at the suppression, as it were, of Jim Chee in it, as if he had lost a few points of IQ. … Your pleasure is partly due to traveling into other climates and having something to which to compare with San Diego. Without that, I have to say from experience, it gets old, too little change. On the other hand, you have a handy desert and mountain area nearby to buff up the comparisons, so yeah, San Diego County is quite a place... Still miss Wild Animal Park, the zoo, Sea World... ... .Something is said to be likely to hit the fan regarding the mal-expenditure of federal funds, but news of mismanagement is no news to me. There will be a scramble to shift the blame on the part of the higher-ups, and that would be a great show for the "fly-on-the-wall" to witness, but I'll be gone, and my level of caring about such things will doubtless drop to the level of a grasshopper's instep. … I have been reading Tony Hillerman novels of late -- The Wailing Woman and The Sinister Pig. I have read nearly all of the Navaho mysteries. I hope to find Hillerman Country in the library, and, as I have mentioned, I own The Best of the West which he edited. … I thought this might happen as you neared the end of first notebooks effort, "post-partum", etc. It probably happens to most people who put much into a book project, at least to a degree. In a former age, a friend passed on to me the idea the human world has pressure like the ocean or atmosphere, and we need a counter-pressure to it. As our own pressure drops, the world presses in on us. A suggestive idea... We get smaller, and the world more easily imposes its image on the yielding self. Hmm, maybe it is depressing to be forced to look at the tawdry side of the glitzy show of popular culture, like looking at the props and wires and general gimcrackery behind the scenes at a theatre, or like catching in the shadows the glitter in the eye of the marionetteer … I read the Mayle book and, I think, its sequel, quite a while ago. The juxtaposition of the modern English couple and the old style southern French country people, made an amusing and sympathetic read. … I have seen so many people go (nametags are literally on Velcro) and mostly there is not much positive people say or do about former co-workers. … Going into holding mode while waiting for others to do something is not one of my favorite states. I work best alone, though I can imagine working with a simpatico partner on a project. Many of my lesser moments at work has been due to lack of communication and cooperation from others. … I have always been utterly indifferent to most sports, especially team sports. I could get excited about, oh say tennis, or fencing, or golf, or any one-on-one sport, or even a two against two sport. But otherwise my "go team go" gene is lacking. I do not care how the Milwaukee Hagfish do against the St. Louis Tapeworms, or whatever it is. People often strike me as rather insane on this issue, I mean "my high-priced gigantic mesomorphic anthropoids that don't come from the area the team is based can beat your high-priced gigantic mesomorphic anthropoids that don't come from the area the team is based"... Maybe some folks just like to yell "ki-l-l-l" like the cat in Patrick McManus's story. (Have you tried him yet? He is one of our few good humorists.) … One does not need to have an official disorder to grow weary of overcast and have dull weather affect one's mood. I got so tired of an everlasting gray sheet of cloud overhead on Vancouver Island that I had a bit of a funk for weeks. Too much low light and low contrasts in the daytime world is flatly depressing. Yet, oddly, too much blinding sun and too little variety in weather can bog down some people, including me, too. The spirit craves variety, and in reacting to seasonal change, we are reinvigorated. … Many years ago, I had dreams that disturbed me. They were the type that has one waking in a sweat and heart racing. So I had a long talk with myself and explained that this was unacceptable. I remember emphasizing that I would rather not dream, or at least not remember dreams, if the price was that my mind was allowed to scare itself really badly. (I have never had any doubt the mind could wander into dark corners of itself so far it could not find its way back.) Since this confabulation with myself, I have rarely dreamed, or have had little memory of dreams. Of course, it is hard to appreciate what has not been there -- I may have lost a lot of very good experiences in dreamland, but on the other hand... Yet occasionally I do dream, mostly good dreams. The odd bad dream has usually been due to my mind trying to wake itself because of bodily overheating, to which I am prone. I have no objection to such efforts to wake, otherwise I might just cook myself! … No problems here from the storm -- just rain and overcast, a bit of wind. It had rained much harder the previous week. At around 4:45 PM the rain came down with such quantity and force, the roof next door looked like it had sprouted silver fur. She, alas, was at that moment standing at a bus stop on the Penn State campus, when soddenly... |
|
| 092303 |
My
camera is an Olympus C2600UZ. The great thing about it is its 10X optical
zoom. With the not so often used digital zoom added to the optical
zoom, I can get a range of 27X total. But I usually stick to the optical
range. Between the widest angle and the full optical telephoto, I have
the 10X range, for an effective telephoto of about 350mm equivalent on a
35mm camera. I cannot say enough about the importance (to me) of this
telephoto capability, and I do not understand the lack of interest in this
by both the industry, and ordinary folks who use digital cameras. The
telephoto "puts me there"! I reach across water, over fences, through
branches, out into the clouds with it, bless the camera's little digital
heart. Maybe I need an 8x10 Linhoff digital camera with f64 and a gazillion pixel chip :-) Much that is better than average from me comes from the digital darkroom work done on the computer. Yes, I have begun to learn to use layers, among other things, to push the image where I want it to go. But I am not a fanatic on the topic of theoretical perfection in the image -- the feeling of it and the commentary are the main thing for me now. I see the commentary working with the image to move in the direction of art, whatever that is. The big limitation of the camera is its digital view of the scene, especially in macro shots, or in low light -- I just can't see whether something is dead sharp or not. I may never have the $ to upgrade to a camera with an optical through-the-lens view in a digital camera, but I dream about it a lot. |
|
| 092603 |
If
I, like you, you had gone through Infantry Basic... and thus know how
to crawl on my belly and sneak up on things..... then could I get by
with JUST a close up lens? I can just see it now: You climb sneakily up an elm tree and out on a 4 inch limb to get a shot of a squirrel's whiskers -- it never sees you, but does hear a few odd clicks among the leaves. I creep up the side of a building to a shelf where a pigeon dawdles. I adjust my camera and makes some prize-winning shots, but the pigeon is oblivious, due to stealth techniques. The crowd is breathless, the Pulitzer Committee calls an emergency session, the President takes time off from rearranging the MidEast to attend the celebrations. The two photographers top their own pioneer efforts by taking pictures of each other and neither ever knows what has occurred. The breathless crowd falls unconscious due to lack of oxygen. The Pulitzer Committee is absorbed by the Nobel Committee in a hostile takeover. Science is shaken. Art is changed forever. A new world is born. … He could crop away half his image and end up with the size I start with, dang it. These cameras need to be upgradable, fond hope. Still think a web site is your answer, rather than a CD. I can tell you from experience that there is a lot of work in the serious preparation of a group of images, and it is only natural to want a way to display one's best images properly. Doing the CD would be great for, say, a whole bunch of images from a particular trip, or family gathering -- maybe a family album to be shared among the family or friends. But for an evolving "gallery" of special shots, the web site is probably the most effective way to share it. Am still too cheap to pay extra for more storage -- I get 10 megs for free, and am struggling to stay within bounds, as you see on the Larch site. |
|
| 092903 |
Hope
you were able to return, as you said you wanted to do, and read the notes.
The notes, I have come to think, are becoming more integral to the appreciation
of the images. ... It happens this Wednesday at the end of the work day. This is what I should have done at age 21, but alas, the $, of course, was an issue. People ask me about plans -- I think they have lots of plans, having to do with travel, buying campers, perhaps, starting that big project... I have few plans, just to keep doing what I have been doing, but more so, more intensively. Work is, for most of us, just a long series of interruptions that keep much of anything from happening. By the time retirement comes, a lot of people are mentally scattered, the dreams of youth a dim memory, the purposes of life diluted, their energies joined with the 4 degree background radiation of the universe. ... As I've said, I like the idea of forging a personal document while giving semi-automatic body language to others that each of their ers and ums is being recorded by you and taken seriously. I assume they interpret your steady writing as the taking of notes on the valuable input they are making. At the least, it must impress them more than if you were doodling out images of mass destruction... ... "Democracy is one endless meeting" -- please, I just ate! I really have to say I don't think meetings are generally the best way to do things -- most meeting stuff is what managers used to do without meetings. It may be fine for councils to do their thing. Another good use of ==> short <== meetings is to generate a sense of focus and make special assignments for the current day or week. Most committees could be disbanded and each replaced by one knowledgeable person with common sense and some real authority. Based on what I have seen, the modern committee is a result of abdication by the managerial level probably based on fear of wielding authority and being held accountable for screwups or laziness. With a sense of surprise and shock, I have realized one of the guiding assumptions of the modern work world is that a group is smarter than an individual person, which is, of course, poppycock. Groups have neither brain nor integrity and a slew of committees and meetings is not going to change that fact. ... Why is California here except to benefit mankind? Well, how about to provide a cautionary example for the rest of us? Or to show what happens when a desert civilization runs out of borrowed water? To show just how long a string strip malls can make? To show the way to a get from birth to death without a single original thought? To live in a land and have utterly no feeling for it as an ecological reality? I could go on, but at least the politics is interesting, thanks to Hiram Johnson. I disapprove of the laughter directed against California due to the strange array of those who want to be governor. [The laughter] doesn't smell natural -- perhaps the scorn-masters have been egged on for political reasons? Or don't people like the Hiram Johnson idea that the people ultimately rule? ... Am now reading your not technology-bashing -- haven't yet grasped your point. What has the technology to do with stupidity? Hasn't stupidity done OK for itself without technological augmentation? Well, I see you go on to describe poor communication skills on the part of most of democracy's agents, no argument from me there. Accurate descriptive expression is fade, fade, fading away. Alas, those who communicate poorly, talk a great deal, and all the time, it seems. Babble, babble, babble to make up for lack of precision, perhaps. Or maybe everyone is the star of their own radio or TV show in their mind and, of course, one can't have dead air -- what would the sponsors think? Remember, you are basically a book person dealing with nervous systems weaned on the electronics. Maybe that is what you were getting at -- the McLuhan thesis that new media rewires the inner person. Whatever is causing this degeneration of the society and the individual, and there are quite a few theories about this, I can't say I like it. Question: she and I in recent conversation have tried to figure out when kids were elevated to demigodhood, the state they are in now. We figure early Seventies maybe. Any ideas? Whatever the cause it is very explicit in this area, and probably most areas. The kids are raised to believe they are the very most fabulous and wonderful little beings in all the universe. These are future "people persons". Smooth in interpersonal relations, superficial, selfish, perfect consumers -- the (shudder) ruling generation to-be. Most of them never know the pleasure of playing and roaming around and learning about the world -- they are in guided activities at all times. One career teacher quit, saying, "these are not people!" Hmm, if not people, what are they? Consumer robots? ... Been to Solvang, and a little to the areas you mentioned. For maybe five years, she and I kept our business open 7 days a week, then gave ourselves a day off each week. On that day, we would go to the Wild Animal Park, the zoo, SeaWorld, the nearby mountains (Julian apple pie!), or the desert -- all within 50 to 100 miles. To be sure, we missed a lot of what Southern CA can offer, but saw a lot in San Diego County. When you retire, (and I do recommend it) you can travel as you wish, write more, listen to music, become a wise old guru of government. Small projects are probably a good idea for the retired, small reachable goals that feel good when completed, but don't obligate one too long. Time grows in value as life tips toward its close, far more important than money. Once in our Sandy Eggo days, she and I found ourselves in a dusty back area that had poor roads and no names on the mailboxes. However, the little grocery store had a very expensive collection of wines. We realized there was invisible money all around us on 10 and 20 acre ranchettes. ... "Indiana has been on my mind." Sounds like a song or poem trying to be born. Hope the Indiana fix worked for you, and Amish country gave you some good food and good memories. ... As to books -- have absorbed 3 Tony Hillerman mysteries lately, read some colonial history, The Miracle of Flight is happening now, a book on insect, bird, and human flight. Insects still are baffling the experts with their aerobatics. Also a book of folk tales from the rural counties of northern PA (amazingly empty areas still in Pennsylvania). Have read a lot of folk tales, anecdotes, ghost stories, tall tales, brags, jokes, etc. I do like the "telling tale". Got an old Nat Geo book on Indians from the library -- the old illustrations were so superior to the cutesy stuff they are doing now. I dip into poetry here and there, and not much time goes by before I begin another book of natural science, the type that involves real experience and insight. Watchers At The Pond was superb. So many interests, I'll have to live a thousand years, at least. .. Well, nothing to forgive [for free expression]. Speak your mind, let your thoughts roam in letters, convey not just the facts of life, I say, but the flavor too, the notions, impressions, the poetry of it. That is what letter-writing can do, ideally. What is the real purpose of any real conversation? Is it not to overlap mental worlds for the creativity and pleasure of it? On our own we can easily slip into a gentle torpor because, while we can pursue our interests by ourselves, we have a harder time mentally stimulating ourselves in real time (I guess the prolific author has solved that problem). |
|
| 100103 |
My work life has ceased to be. … So, 24 hours after my last hour of work, I will be far away from home. This flying journey will take us through a bit of Canada, so I hope to visit the McMichael Art Museum at Kleinburg, near Toronto, where the paintings important to Canada live, especially those of the Group of Seven. She wants to see gardens near Niagara Falls, and the falls themselves. The whole thing is to be done in about 6 days, so my head will be spinning. Probably there will be some images from all that. ... About your being down, I know, more or less, how you are feeling. Things become heavier to do, interests wane, time drags. It seems for some of us there is a price to pay for our times of creativity and enthusiasm. I tell myself, when I am down, to try to organize my space, repair my tools, and perhaps force myself to do little projects to completion. It seems to help, a little. As you say, thank goodness we can still go out into the natural world and let its healing ways penetrate the darkened sphere that surrounds us. |
|
| 100803 |
I returned
late last night after a somewhat exhausting trip of around 1600 miles.
Spent the day unpacking, recuperating, messing with pictures. Head
still spinning a bit. More later. I am still somewhat tired,
maybe even have a touch of some bug, hope not. |
|
| 101003 |
The
flying trip she and I made was a bit strange -- she was mildly ill during
the first day, and more so during the trip back home, so I did more driving
than I thought I would. At least I was able to see the McMichael Art
Gallery (Canadian National Gallery) and some of the works of the Group of
Seven whose works helped form what Canadians think of as central to their
developing sense of national identity … I am still spinning a bit from the journey and not settling down to focus on emails or pictures. This is in part due to a mishap I had when carrying a very heavy and awkward monitor of hers to the van to help with their assisted living move. I couldn't see in front of me, and I turned into a rocky area instead of the walkway. The result was a bit of a dance to keep from falling and I moderately strained about every muscle in my body, or at least it feels that way. This achiness makes me restless and I have got out of the apartment on each of the last two days, and even took pictures, but I haven't done the hours of "darkroom" work that I usually do. |
|
| 101203 |
Here
is set one of the photos and commentary on the whirlwind trip to the Little
Finger region of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. |
|
| 101303 |
I'm
glad you liked the images/commentary -- indeed more to come. I have
been slowly evolving a feeling for fusing of visual and written information.
The first attempts were a little awkward, I think because I tried for too
tight a frame, so to speak. Now I have become easier with a more intuitive
approach. The written material, in the right amount, slows the viewer's
time down to the pace emotions can occur, whereas people tend to rapid-scan
images by habit and the feelings are left behind in the dust. So my
current thinking goes, anyway. ... Besides classical music (which I about OD'ed on during years of listening at the book store), in the past I have gone through phases of music that included synthesized music, unusual sounds like the aboriginal didgeridoo, Japanese instruments, such as the shakahashi, Gregorian chant, and on and on. I also like a lot of folk music, and in the early 90's, I compiled about 40 hours of selected songs on tape from PBS broadcasts. Now I spend less time with music, as I have come to realize how powerful it is, and so take it less lightly than I did. Let's hear it for paradoxes! |
|
| 101403 |
It seems, and no
surprise, that retirement is something to grow into, as it is such a change
from the rest of life. As a young child, there is a sort of "retirement"
where no one thinks one should be productive, rather one is learning the
basic skills through experience, play, and fantasy. As to fantasy,
I was fairly active in that. I've written about "going off somewhere"
in the mind and living in thought while outwardly, the eyes seem to be staring
into the distance. That is been always latent in me to this day, and
I sometimes still do it. Then the human world becomes more insistent in the long years of school. There are endless lessons to be learned and even homework to deepen the learning. One aspect of all the lessons and the long hours of sitting at desks is to prepare one for the world of work. A new PhD may have spent 19 out of 24 years slogging through the books, proving, at least, that he or she has that sort of discipline and that sort of tractability. In the work world, we have now a major paradox: though the machines are doing more work, people touched with the dubious accolade of "professional" (non-exempt is the term at Penn State) are to work 10 to 12 hours as a matter of course. And many ordinary workers labor at two jobs to keep from slipping into relative poverty (not having an SUV). Meanwhile, real standards slip. Management fails to manage; planners don't plan; control lacks quality. Cream sinks, and the politicians rise. Yes, let the word politician stand for all those who succeed by the unremitting force of acquisitive ego always focused on power and privilege. This type recognizes each other, and freely collude in their gatherings called "meetings". Yet aside from these comments, for many of us, the best years of our lives are spent in the maelstrom of other people's perceptions and values. Lucky are those who can clearly see the value of what they do amid the general chaos, and doubly lucky are those who really love what they do (not just say they do). As an aside, I notice certain jobs are best for masochists in that one never wins in them, just endures. The electrician or plumber or other similar technician dances through this nonsense, making good money, having the needed days of leisure, and no one doubts the value of what they do. So, then comes retirement. Probably most people are totally unprepared for it. I feel somewhat prepared. I have interests, and I will continue pursuing them. Yet I sense the strange release of pressure that retirement is. My three-day work week of the past couple of years helped prepare me. Right now I am thinking of small projects as the key to transition, and maybe they are the overall key as well. Have a small goal. Meet the goal. Repeat. Build up to interlocking small goals that have a greater result. Learn to deal with the built-in problems: maintaining one's own standards, working through disappointment, realizing that ordinary life is distracting, enervating... … I like this paragraph [of yours]. Whatever problems our childhoods gave us, it also gave us a real self that thinks its own thoughts. We are inner-directed people, quite unlike the dreamless semi-automatons that so many are. Many are selfish enough, no problem, but they are not real selves, not really people at all, just hive creatures that look like people. (Okay, that's over-stated, but that is the prerogative of the writer -- one tires of being perfectly reasonable ALL the time :-) … No problem -- I don't expect others to have my attitudes about things. And of course I may pay dearly for my aversion to doctors. I plan to regret the heck out of the situation if I need to... That said, I DO hope to avoid, or put off, the medication scenario where one takes multiple interacting medicines, each having its side effects, and hassling the imbalances for the rest of my life. I will try to adjust diet and exercise to have the needed effect, to the degree possible, for as long as possible. But I am not fanatical about it, just semi-fanatical... As part of that, as the chief cook, I'll be looking both at simple AND nutritious foods to bring our weights down to a non-waddling level. … Here's hoping for more happy years to your good cat companion. It IS true that vet bills are sky-rocketing like those for people. Will we live in hock to the health industry from birth to death someday? Of course medical insurance is a tether to us now... … Too bad you are having to cancel your trip, but I understand what a big deal it would be. I am reading Hillerman Country now, that I got through inter-library loan. You would like it (assuming you haven't read it yet, I don't remember if you said you had). The pictures are by Tony's brother Barney, they are mostly large and detailed, so like being there, to a degree. … Well, I SURE didn't want to fall with that monitor in my arms, but I do have weak ankles (I some expertise at falling), so I could have fallen. Shudder. … Goofy, for sure [groceries that must scan each of several identical items]. I have always been bemused by such inefficiencies that pop up amid otherwise sophistication. I have a theory about a world-wide institution called the School of Bad Design... … Neat, I have never seen a flock of mockingbirds. I would have thought that all that spiffiness and birdy-ego could not be condensed without an explosion, but live and learn... … Haven't read it [The Patron Saint of Liars]. I figure lying, aside from the moral issues, involves so much "book-keeping" and memory, that it would be a real burden as the years go on -- there would end up being a mountain of trash to deal with... |
|
| 102003 |
I had a friend
whose communication dial is ever set on RETICENT, and who, from years back,
seems to be edging ever further from civilization. When I try to imagine
his current state, it comes out like an Ent (Tolkein) or some mossy gnome. .. I am continuing to try to apply the small projects theory to my new state, with mixed results. The only good thing so far is, I have accomplished something each day, though one must apply personal generosity at times to give the thing a positive spin |
|
| 102203 |
Short attention span (officially ADS) is a real epidemic these days. ... So that deja vu of the earlier note from you was reality based for sure. I laughed when I read from you that you had actually hiked the Sleeping Bear Dunes and so knew about that country from experience, a nice coincidence. … True, I don't take many images of people, and especially I don't show the faces of people often. … I wanted somehow to do right by those interesting forests, but that would take living there a while and catching them in their different moods... … Frankly, I have no idea what the values are of the many works of the Group of Seven. If you look into it, maybe there are some affordable works. But the large works of Lawren Harris probably are worth quite a bit. … The commentary is growing in importance to me, partly to slow the viewer down long enough to actually react to the pictures, but also it gives the viewer the beginnings of a context for the image, a link to a voice, a recognition of the image as an artifact of a particular person. |
|
| 102403 |
Yeah, chlorine
is not the greatest of odors, for sure. And who knows, perhaps with
the strong associative power of smells, perhaps it does recall some memories
of stomach-turning. Though I don’t think it is quite the same thing,
the smell of cooking liver has always come close to making me ill, and if
I were already queasy, it would no doubt make it worse Sounds like a classic Bad Day. Between the chlorine and the cacophony, you were being chosen as Goat of the Day by a couple of the more malicious gods. I have some of those days too, of course. If we could but know, we could just don earplugs, take some red cough syrup, and stay in bed on those days. Take a pass on the gratuitous suffering, that not only does not ennoble, it is a pain in the posterior. … The flights of the gulls in high cold wind – the hovering and dipping into the water for a bit of food, the graceful recovery back into the air, the soaring sideways to the wind – all this is enthralling to me. If I lived among the gulls, they would be well photographed. … The mass of humanity is obtuse. One must keep making excuses for them, which gets old. But I think that working among people simply dilutes one – much of the time and effort one gives is diluted by the dithering, reinterpreting, ego-slathering effects of others, not to mention the entropy of endless misunderstandings. Better to do one’s own thing well, and hope that others can benefit – at least then there is integrity to the process, whether appreciation is there or not. … Good stuff here [“I wonder if we could survive childhood without our fantasies.”], I’ll have to go back and try to reconstruct some of my fantasies. I do remember how absolutely real the fantasy would instantly be as soon as one made it up, and that remained true if I or a playmate decided to change it. A very strong suspension of disbelief in an evolving world. At one point I became aware I could make up stories at will, though I didn’t follow through on that in later years… … Sounds like you have the projects in hand, though smalling them down may help, I tell myself, when they grow unwieldy. A thought: for young persons nearing, or in, adolescence, a 3 x 5" box with a selection of never-fail recipes might be a nice and inexpensive present to help them get going on their own recipe box. If you have such recipes on cards, you could use the scanner to "photocopy" them maybe… … Yes, this [Tony Hillerman’s soaking up a place as he developed plot ideas] interests me too. The place helped him imagine much of the plot – how this person might escape, or that one might react to the place to change a course of action. Anchor points for the author’s imagination. … And let’s hope not for a long while. I try take extra care not to fall, but my ankles are wont to turn even on a bad pebble. … Sounds like a very civilized, even Japanese, sort of gathering. And, yeah, health is indeed relative… … Yes, bluejays like to complain, they probably get together to see who can complain the best. … There is a world of lesser beings (non-mockingbirds) for mockingbirds to have vocal fun with. This is interesting – you used the word missile to stand for a written message. During the trip to Michigan, she used the same word in the same way, saying she sent someone a missile. I said, smiling, "I hope you weren’t going to blow someone up?" She looked quizzically. I said "The word is missive, not missile." She replied "Really? Wasn’t there some church word missile?" Hesitating, I said " Maybe, that does sound right…" The conversation took another turn for a while, then I said "Oh, you must have combined the word missive with the word epistle and got a missile!" She laughed, saying "Maybe so." So, I checked the dictionary and found that missile means a weapon projected at a distance. A missal is a book containing all said and sung at mass during the year. A missive is a letter, as is an epistle, though epistle has a formal connotation. Bottom line, though my emails may be a bit expansive, they are not missiles :^D … Very sorry to hear about the bass thudding from above. For me it is a terrible experience to have to try to do anything, while some inconsiderate bozo is blasting its eardrums and mine. Can you somehow play the personal health card here with the tenant (which probably won’t do any good) and then with the landlord? Then try a gun, preferably large caliber :-> |
|
| 102603 |
Let me know how
the printing goes for the image I sent you. Printing these things is
a bit of an art, and sometimes needs several efforts to get the result one
wants. I have a lot to learn about that. The difference between
what one sees on the monitor and what comes from the printer is often disturbingly
great... |
|
| 102703 |
Our sympathies
for San Diego county residents during this incredible Santa Ana / fires outbreak.
Hope you all are doing OK. |
|
| 102903 |
We are off to Bedford village this weekend. She has been wanting to go, and I think it will be fun too. |
|
| 110403 |
We senior types are the targets of the health fates, and those have don't have a kindly attitude. ... Yesterday, with clear weather, I went out picture-taking. I started out somewhat dull and got sharper as the walk continued. (I wonder if an ill person could walk out from under the illness. I read of an older woman who walked across the U.S. and most of her health problems left her by Denver.) As I wandered here and there, I began to see more and more picture possibilities, the stiffness left me, and I came back to myself. I may buy that pedometer yet! As I acclimate to a retired state, I am continuing to work on the backlog of "darkroom" work -- selecting and deleting images, backing them up, working on some of the shots. A big effort has been selecting from all the months of images the better ones for the ScreenSaver folder. Though I really enjoy watching the slow presentation of my images by the screensaver, the main purpose is to have faster access to the photos for projects. For example, I have begun, and am well into, the creation of a calendar for our household. The actual calendar part has been printed, the cover is done and printed, and the images for each month have been selected and named. Soon I will finish that project. Another project, that is too big to tackle easily (must be broken down) is the creation of a time-line based history of colonial America. I began this weeks ago, and want to get back to it. Another goal is to develop more skill with image-manipulation programs. I may try to develop small goals for particular effects, and work on these one at a time. Painting is calling me too, I want to do some drawing and painting, probably based on photo images. I like working on a black background as that mimics the way light works on dark matter, and the effect urges the imagination to be involved in the perception of the image. I think of cave paintings, people looking at them by flickering torchlight, the shaman picking out this or that image with a thrust of the torch as he wove his verbal magic. Have finished Bernd Heinrich's Winter World, a good book about how animals survive the bitter northern winter cold. It particularly focuses on the Golden-crowned kinglet, a bird whose tinyness contradicts the general rule that northern creatures are larger. It endures temperatures of thirty below zero Fahrenheit and more. It is active all winter. The book also looks at winter moths, squirrels, hares, and many others. Some of their techniques of defeating cold, and of knowing when to wake and be active, are amazing. Honeybees maintain a constant comfortable temperature in the hive, when outside the killing winds are blowing. Honeybees are active in deepest winter. The author also has written about ravens (I read his Mind of the Raven.) and other books as well. Another book, nearly finished, is Folklore on the American Land by Duncan Emrich. It is a large collection of tales, songs, tales, epitaphs, etc. collected mostly by professional folklorists, including the author. I love this stuff. After reading it one night, and turning off my light to sleep, I had a ditty of my own come and work itself out in my sleepy head: Little Linda Patty Moore Fell in love with a stevedore. Oh she's been rich and she's been poor, Little Linda Patty Moore. When in time the two did wed, They lived for months on fish and bread. Oh she's been rich and she's been poor, Little Linda Patty Moore. And then, oh joy, his ship came in, But came about and went out again. Oh she's been rich and she's been poor, Little Linda Patty Moore. Yes, the topics of IQ and varieties of intelligence and creativity, are vast. It is like old-fashioned TVs where there were various tweakable controls and any one of them would make a difference. Anyway, my guess is that talented and creative people are statistically smarter then the average, regardless of the details of how these abilities came to be, or how creativity or intelligence is measured. This still leaves room for exceptions on both ends -- where the talented person is unintelligent outside a narrow scope of ability, or where the person is hyperintelligent, but only in a narrow range of possible applications. A particularly interesting case is very great eidetic ability in a person. I have read of such people, and my impression is that while they can recall, for example, the words, including the exact location on the page, they don't show an ability to creatively use the information. This is so poignantly sad that it is almost like old stories of being granted wishes, but with a catch... |
|
| 110503 |
Thanks for noticing
the passage of time re me. This retirement takes some getting used
to, for sure. However, with diligent practice, I expect to come to
terms with the changes, have fun, and even get some things done that were
put on hold back in the (shudder) days of work. I am slowly working
through the possibilities... |
|
| 110803 |
Probably you watched
the eclipse this evening, if you had good weather, and I thought you'd like
some shots of it. We had some thin intermittent cloud as we watched
the event while sitting at the borough diamond (called a town square elsewhere). |
|
| 110903 |
New background
again (geese) -- I keep finding new possibilities in email backgrounds and
this one has me fairly pleased, not just for what it is, but the other possibilities
it has. It uses an "embossing" feature that several image manipulation
programs have. It has turned out to be quite a trick to avoid mangling
the legibility of the text. … Insanity does take several forms -- that one is at least enjoyable sounding. ... Yes, plenty of time later in winter to take it easier. It does seem that learning and trying new things helps keeps the pleasure of life intact. … Well, to save effort, I have put an independent and automatic psychic nag into effect that will bug you at random times over the next era or so to record and share. CDs are cheap, and by the time you figure out how to record the music, convert your cuts into mpeg or avi or whatever files, and copy CDs from the master, you will no doubt be having inklings of other possibilities, like making a CD the sales of which could help support your project. Consider it another learning opportunity (ah, got you there). ... Meanwhile I have been knee-deep in things photographic, and doing a lot of reading to begin catching up on what work so rudely interrupted. |
|
| 111003 |
Thanks for the
two astronomy links -- found some beautiful images, both stellar and terrestrial.
As to using it [digital astronomical camera] for duck pix, I think the 350
kg weight of the camera would be a bit much for me to haul around, so I'll
stick to what I have. If I have to take an image of a duck in Pittsburgh
though, and I want to take it from here, I'd be willing to give it a shot. |
|
| 112003 |
Recent days have
slid by almost without notice. I continue to gnaw away at projects,
but have had to "littlize" them a few times to make them doable. The
weather has been darkish, rainyish, and have not gone out to take pictures.
However I am awash in October images -- I spent much of two days whittling
away around 150 images that were poor or redundant. It still leaves
500 images! From these I selected the better ones (over 150 of these)
and have just set aside 46 to look at more closely. The reason for
so much time being spent is that I cannot seem to help working on the images
as I go -- cropping, changing the gamma and contrast, and even hauling the
images to another program for some serious surgery. I am getting faster
at it, but that just makes me do it more... Still, I was way behind in the image maintenance from work days, and the catching up was truly needed. Later I will play around with painting, the little I've done shows how much I've forgotten. Am not at all inspired by it yet, don't know if I will be. … A bright spot has been the reading I have been doing lately. I finished Animals I Have Known from the Audubon Magazine, edited by John Kerres. Then I began another library book and found it to be by John Kerres, How Birds Fly. It is good too, with lots of personal experiences. Last night I finished Ancient Mariners, which I enjoyed, though the descriptions of the Roman habit of hauling animals hundreds of miles to feed the howling mob's lust for violence and blood was tough to read (not that things have changed as much as some people think, the mob is still in charge, is still superficial, and more than a little vicious). I have always read an eclectic mix of things, mostly non-fiction. I like to learn new things, and I like to enter into the worlds of thoughtful people as they go about doing what they care about. Other books being read are: one on Mary Engelbreit (greeting card designer), the Uncle Remus tales, Cowboy (fiction, but accurate), another compilation of American folk tales (great for night-time reading), and a cartoon book for laughs. I am thinking of putting inter-library loan into high gear, and getting a better selection of nature books. For some reason, I haven't looked much at all the literature I brought back from the Michigan trip, well, when the winter deepens... (One of the best uses of winter.) ... I listen to music once a week, while doing chores (I find it very distracting when I need to concentrate). Around 1990, '91, I created a series of cassettes by recording various music from PBS, (folk, blues, electronic, etc.) and then re-taping just the works I really liked. I tried to get a good quality original recording to counter the inevitable loss of quality in re-taping. Anyway, over a year or so, I made 21 cassettes, with each cassette having 3 hours of sound. The tapes still sound good to me after all these years. I had a little control deck that I got from Radio Shack, so the transitions from song to song are fairly smooth. The best thing about it is the variety, and the simple fact of being based on my taste, plus the sheer quantity of material means it takes weeks to go through the whole thing, and so never grows stale from too much repetition. Some of the folk songs are as affecting as good poetry. ... Some of the people at her workplace enquire as to whether I am growing bored with retirement and do I feel the need to get another job -- poor things, they probably need to convince themselves that what they do is worthwhile. The only thing another job would do for me is to give me a chance to retire again. ... Am finally poised to do the October web page. It is kind of odd that this is the thing I do to stay in touch with others through something I make out of whole cloth, yet so little response to it. I didn't expect much, but nearly nothing is a bit less than I anticipated. Yet, I tell myself, this is the way the world is, full of commercial sound and fury, but what we handmake, like your Zaysdays, is faintly curious and quaint, even eccentric perhaps. Were I ideally fortified, I sometimes think, I would not care at all, yet another thought that comes about that time is, if one really were not to care, then why would one do it at all. When my energies are singing along OK, the way is clear enough: being and nature pose the question, and we answer from the better self. One delights in life, and one acts to honor that state, and to continue it. Always one steps aside from the dulling influences of mundane life and renews contact with joy. How often I have realized this, and how often I have forgotten! |
|
| 112103 |
Thank you for the
nice note. It is fun to send images to people who enjoy them.
For something different, I have included a sound file of a simple impromptu
poem in this email that I think you will hear automatically when you read
it (assuming your sound is working). |
|
| 120103 |
Just a note to
let you know I yet live, though a nasty Asian flu seemed to be trying to
make that untrue. I find I am not these days often in a letter-writing
mood. I think I need some of that nature restorative myself.
My own projects will be limping along for a while. |
|
| 120503 |
I am slowly climbing
out from under the flu, or whatever vile thing it is, and am feeling better.
Somehow I have little photographing desire right now, so am putting that
off for sometime in the future. I am getting back into computer programming, much to learn and re-learn there, so it will be a long haul. Also, very slowly, I am doing a bit of drawing and painting -- mostly exercise stuff that I seem to have to do to get back into the rhythm of it. Don't know where that will go. Still doing a lot of reading, especially nature writing, but always with side trips to anything of interest at the moment. Finished Critters - Adventures in Wildest Suburbia by A.B.C. Whipple. This was surprisingly good, a look at all the wild animals that have moved into the suburban realm, geese, rabbits, deer, raccoon, and so on. How the wheel goes round! There are, in some cases, more of some species in the suburbs than in nearby wilder land. There have been many changes in the lives of these creatures as they relate to man, and this is the latest, it will change again presumably. Am reading a series of mystery stories you would probably like if you can find the book: it is Cork of the Colonies by S.S. Rafferty. The hero-detective is Captain Jeremy Cork, his "Watson" is Wellman Oakes, and the tales take place in the American colonies in the 1740s & 50s. We found the stories years ago, and finally located the book after a lot of looking. Other books: several folk ones, including a Canadian and an Ozark book. Would like to develop a bit of a library of these... Got a philosophical one: Moral Man And Immoral Society by Reinhold Neibuhr. The title is by far the best part. He is way too socialist in bias for my taste, but his basic idea is correct: society, and social groups, are not as moral as individual people can be. Of course, most people take their cues from the larger society... Some books on art to stoke the fires, maybe. Also a fun one: The Best of the Old Farmer's Almanac. Another is a graphic version of some Ray Bradbury tales. Ever read him? Very evocative, poetic prose. He was a writer hero of mine years ago. A book of Jesse Stuart essays -- don't know much about him yet, may pursue him a bit. ... The "official" flu season is not yet here, and people, even those taking shots, are getting something that is not the flu, but might as well be. My case caused all the standard symptoms, and the racking cough was convulsive and painful. … We use a lot of the cookies that one breaks off and bakes -- mmm, fresh cookies as a dinner desert! … I definitely like this idea [recipe book computer document] as a Christmas project for you -- I imagine it getting you really involved with the possibilities of the computer. And, for all the work, it can be replicated easily for as many recipients as you wish. I'll have to think more about that for myself for next year, especially as we retired persons must watch pennies. … We are still using a vacuum cleaner given to us five years ago because it smelled of dog hair, and so was replaced. I cleaned it up and have been using it ever since. Being a cheapskate about the bags, or maybe just one who dislikes tracking down the things to buy them, I carefully clean the bags, slit them open to empty the dirt, and, using two inch tape, tape them back up and reuse them. I get about four uses out of one bag. … No, I hadn't heard about this. Seems like an un-Columbus sort of crime. But the murder of an innocent woman ought to get the authorities moving, or someone should change authorities. … This is as surreal a thing as any I've heard lately [playing classical music to turkeys in the slaughterhouse]. Gregorian chants as "Music to Die By". Watching a movie of turkeys on a conveyor belt, with ethereal voices in the background, heads flying off, knives going snicker-snack,... would be enough to put any viewer into a "different place". All for now, at least I am sort of writing again… |
|
| 120403 |
Good to hear you
are writing songs and carrying on musically. I am, as usual cycling
around my various interests, now this, now that. Currently I'm messing
about with computer programming again, Windows programming actually -- something
I actively avoided while DOS was an option, which it isn't now, in XP.
Doing a bit of desultory drawing & painting, but not much. Photography
is in hiatus for the time being, as I 'bout burned out on the last set of
images, not much done since. ... Am doing a huge amount of reading, catching up, mostly non-fiction in natural science and lots of folktales of America, a longtime interest. Got all Christmas cards out, amazingly enough, and all the presents done I intend to give (hurray for bookstore gift cards!) She and I give each other the "gift" to get whatever affordable thing the other wants -- for example, "hey buy a whole bunch of books and you get to pick them out." She milked that one for enough reading to last for months. |
|
| 121103 |
Written whilst leaning bedward (we in the east get our darkness a little faster than westish types). … I wrote once to a fellow that didn't see my email because his system clock was over 10 days off! That caused my email to show up way down in his long list of Inbox messages, so he never saw it. |
|
| 121503 |
Am glad you are
in write-mode these days, and have the laptop to make things easier.
Speaking of laptops, or notebooks as I've seen them called, they are getting
really sophisticated and chock full of the latest toys -- I saw an ad for
a $1300 dollar model that had a DVD burner in it. … You said you are researching the ways of getting music onto CD, etc. I haven't done much of that, but when in a computer store recently, I saw a half dozen software packages to do that sort of thing, including converting any "line-in" music from any source to a form that can be burned onto CD or DVD. The DVD can handle a lot more data, so it may be worth looking at getting a burner for that (it is hard to upgrade laptop-style computers, alas). Also, like image-manipulation, some of the audio packages allow extensive editing and general messing-about with the audio files. That sounds very useful in that perhaps you won't need an expensive array of audio editing equipment to get the effects you want. I have found the image manipulating programs, like PhotoShop, to be ahead of what could be done in the darkroom, even with thousands of dollars worth of jazzy enlargers and money pots worth of filters and special papers. Images can be saved from the toss bin, and damaged images can be magically repaired (with knowledge, experience, and patience, of course). … Am curious about your "laying low and not sayin' nutin" (to sort of quote Joel Chandler Harris) at Christmas time. I'm guessing your running all over creation recently and being knee-deep in the chaos of other peoples' lives done burned out some of your social circuits, and burrowing into your own affairs is the right fix. I find others to be a study in the varieties of disappointment, as a rule. I think it must be that I am ignoring my own insight into human affairs -- that conflicts among humans is usually due to a mismatch of expectations. If one could expect nothing, then no disappointment, but the rub there is, without expectations of some sort of benefit, then er, why bother... I really wish I could clearly see people as the simians they are -- I like animals just fine. Too bad enlightenment is difficult, it would be so-o handy. Around and around that goes, endlessly. Well, soon some Christmas socializing to fill my little cup of sociality for another year. … The main plan is to mine the benefits of little projects. These should be finite and have clear results. It is important to know when one has reached the goal, if for no other reason, so that one can celebrate :^D I have succeeded in several of these, and dropped the ball in a few. I am doing a huge amount of reading, catching up on the stuff I couldn't get to in busier (busier, but not particularly productive) years gone by. I lie abed of mornings and let my mind meander about in the spiritual landscape as it wishes to do. None of that time is wasted because it is attention to the source of anything worthwhile. … Certainly it is -- I have taken a zillion photos of the Mallard and feel I could continue taking shots forever and not fail to find new things about them. That only leaves thousands of other animals to delve into, each as mysterious and amazing as the others. Even the three cockatiels that are sitting on me now are endlessly strange little candles set alight by planet earth to burn in their own unique colors for their allotted time. At the moment Toughy is singing his "I'm gone into a fugue state and singing to lord knows what" song. This causes George to sit mesmerized, or nibble Toughy's toes sometimes. Hey, works for them! Sometimes the bull cockatiels walk heavily around like Groucho Marx, ending the walk with a little hop. Or they drum their beaks against some thing that will amplify the sound97 (the "97" was typed by Angelica). The little girl is now perching on my wrist trying to cadge a pet, as the birds love petting more than cats. Parrots (cockatiels are parrots) make good companions, though it is best to live in a cast-iron house if you have them. … You mentioned snow thudding on the eaves, and yes it did that yesterday and the night before to the tune of nearly five inches of the white stuff. I bought some ArcticTrax ice grippers for my shoes so as not to skid around on the packed snow and the ice, not that I am intending to go out much as long as I have what I need. Still, there are chores related to eating, and other interesting things, like more library books. The library is about a block away. understandable, they say it's cold and snowy out there, this getting old is getting old and being warm is good! I still am enjoying the changes of the seasons. There is a rhythm of life that is exciting to watch, endless change... … As you write to me, let me know how your music hobby, as you called it, is proceeding. Send some lyrics. You can fire off a CD or DVD when you produce one. If I give birth to any lyrics, I'll send them along. Once you get into recording, I'm thinking it won't be much harder than my creating Photo Pages, though frankly, there is probably about 10 times more effort in those than most people think (not that I know what they think, as they never say). I will probably back off on that effort for a while to let other interests come to the fore, but I am very curious about image manipulation, and will hopefully gnaw away at learning more about that -- rather time-consuming because each "trick" must be worked through and experience built up, say an hour per each little lesson … You mentioned John McPhee -- I have a "Best OF" his writings, and there is a second one out there. I have read about 2/3 of it and have really liked his cool style. Was impressed with "Encounters with the Arch-druid" and the section on the Pine Barrens. I may get his series on geology sometime. … I doubt you will have much problem as you learn fast. And that will sharply accelerate if you decide the computer is a good tool to help you do what you want to do. These electronic things can be a real pain sometimes, especially when they have a nervous breakdown for obscure and intermittent reasons, as happened to me once when the $3 system clock battery got weak and caused bizarre symptoms for weeks until I guessed about the cause and installed a new one. Another problem is the endless learning curve issue, where every new killer software package that promises to make life-enhancing changes (and end war and poverty) comes up with mind-twisting learning issues. I find it best to combine the resilience and acceptance of youth with the grouchy dubiety of old age, picking and choosing my attitudes as needed. … Well, feel free to write at length on any topic, the more the merrier. We have known each other long enough not to have to be always as scintillating as is (of course) our wont. Sometimes just life is a good enough topic. She writes good letters like that, just flowing along with observations on some wolverine pretending to be a bus driver, or descriptions of the local women chattering like birds about illness and kids, or sometimes varied to talk about kids and illness. (Sometimes I wonder about the intense kid-worship in these parts -- what's the big deal with baby louts :-) |
|
| 121603 |
As to storage of
data on the computer -- I doubt if it is a big problem until you get into
"industrial" levels of sound recording / CD burning. Just delete the
files when you have finished recording to CD. Later, get a computer
with two big hard disks (hard disks are cheap), and use the second purely
for media... |
|
| 122103 |
Kindly to pass
along any good info from Denmark or wherever as I am getting back into audio
in a small way. I've unpacked my audio stuff, wiped 6 years of dust
off, and have it more or less working. The main desire is to, after
a hiatus of maybe 11 or 12 years, get back into recording of folk and other
music from PBS to make my own tapes (and maybe CDs) of the best of it.
Long ago I decided I did not care for listening to whole albums by performers,
but much preferred listening to selected pieces with a lot of variety.
The goal was to get away from the tastes of others in what music to present,
and the order of presentation, and to match my own tastes exactly.
Over a year and a half approximately around 1990-91, I put together 20 2-hour
tapes of what I wanted to hear. I have recently listened to all the tapes again, over a period of weeks, and surprisingly, they still seem good to me. A bit of Prine, a dash of Dylan, a mote of Kate Wolf, or Mary O'Hara, or Danny Doyle, a sliver of ancient Youngbloods, Mimi & Richard Farina, a buzz of didgeridoo, a whoom of Andean Pipes, on and on, hundreds of good things, and none ever beat to death... I came to prize rare sounds, the ones that prickle the neckhairs with their oddness, their evocation of the strange, the wild... I remember sending you a tape with a rainstorm as a background. If I played an instrument, I know I'd try to push it out there beyond civilization. Sound is very powerful in its evocation, whole architectures of feelings and forms writhing together. It hasn't the specificity of visual imagery, but the sympathy between emotion and sound-shapes are much greater than that between emotion and visual form. I have changed some in my use of music over the years, and don't want music most of the time (paradoxically I have realized music is way too powerful to overdo the listening, a visual analogy would be spending hours looking at brightly colored shifting lights). I like to savor a few hours of it maybe one day a week. I leave the door open as regards environmental music -- I have a weak spot for the idea of it, music that is designed to fit unobtrusively into one's mental landscape, but be good enough to enjoy when it comes to the surface of consciousness. I recall Oxygene by Jarre, and Benford's Music For Airports, and Mannheim Steamroller's teutonic weirdness (hardly environmental, come to think of it). Tangerine Dream's interpretation of the Four Seasons, and a rather good Japanese inspired work (Floating World?). I'll have to dig through the tapes and find some of this stuff. But it is always so-called Folk that I come back to. There is some taint in it from large-egoed persons, usually female, that are in love with their own voices, who can't help introducing too much personal ornamentation to the song -- they lose that subtle essence of authenticity. Even Judy Collins has been guilty of that, alas. I repair to the Carter Family when I need a song straight from the heartland without deadening sophistication. So, you are getting some international help on audio to CD recording. Let me know of interesting specifics, as I am thinking of messing with both taped music to CD and with radio to tape to CD. When I was doing lots of recording about 13 years ago, I had, and still have, a Radio Shack control deck that allowed me to control the gap between songs, to segue into the next work without pops, cracklings, and abruptness. Even earlier audio work of about 25 years ago had me working with a moderately sophisticated tape deck that allowed me to record voice simultaneously with other input. You and I were exchanging voice letters via tape and I sent you a couple of my experiments. The possibilities of audio communication were only barely scratched by me. Audio has, sometimes, a way of sharply, suddenly, conveying an environment, of "putting you there". … So many companies these days think that selling a service means a commitment on the part of the buyer to buy more stuff, and yet more stuff. "You bought that, so buy this, or this, or even better, buy a never-ending service till the end of time." There has been a growing raw aggressive quality to American business (and maybe world business) for the last twenty years. A real burn for me is the loyalty cards used by the big groceries. Every week I have $5 or $10 dollars stolen from me by these stores as a punishment for not using their damn cards (hey, the savings to those who don't mind being tracked and selling their privacy "for a mess of potage" is not coming out of the pockets of the investors, is it?). Money is an interesting viral invention -- it may be a beast of low mentality, but it knows where it is welcome! It is like an catalyst or prion -- it converts what it touches to itself, or at least to its own terms. And like a black hole, it draws everything into itself. It is said to be a medium, well, the medium is certainly the message. More on this if you have an interest... … Your description of the journey through wildest electro-lands sounds familiar. I glaze over in these places. "He who buys the most toys, wins!" Homo Consumerus in the Land of Sensual Delights. I once had a fairly brightly lit vision of a near future where everyone wears silvered media glasses that 24/7/365 shows 1000 channels of high-res 3D game-ad-Internet-ad-entertainment-ad-sport-ad. Up in the corner of the wowser view is a small button inscribed "Reality". If your environmental security sweep picks up a bus about to crush ya, a flick of the eye to the Reality button, and there it is -- reality! and one hops out of the bus's way. But in my vision a small window pops up and it says, "There has been a fatal error. This system will be shut down. Any unsaved data will be lost -- OK?" … Well, I don't know whether these [audio software packages] are more than you need or not, given how much $ goes into professional recording equipment, and how much your own standards might rise with experience with a good package … True, the games are beyond belief. The production values are rising at warp speed and some of it will suck in kids at six and spit them out at sixteen ready to roll away from zorgs, and fry gnarlons with electro-beams, though what else they might do, except spend $, I don't know. A recent game by the same creators as Auto Theft (where you steal cars and deal dope), has the user killing people one by one in gruesome ways for the creation of, I guess, the ultimate snuff film. Great training for our future citizens! … With your drawing in of heavy hitters you will be successful, I'm sure. Kindly to pass along the info as it comes. My experience is all self-garnered in the course of solving immediate problems, or developing job skills, or in programming, but this is a field that is so vast and fast changing that expertise is much to be desired. I remember a beginning computer user that wanted to be able to do such and such with a computer -- he bought the thing with tons of advice, then paid real money to a knowledgeable type to set it up for him and tell him how to use it to avoid problems. He figured it was $ well spent. … Reminds me, did your old house in Lake Arrowhead survive the fire? … The 90 days with a tiger sounds like a bit of a strain on good companionship, especially if the food supply runs low. I have been continuing with several fine books on nature and animal behavior. Two books on animal intelligence by Eugene Linden remind me how dumb people can be sometimes, as the scientists cannot break out of their assumptions, though they have proven to be of little help in advancing understanding... … Bad computer, bad! … Will now commit these words to the wires / atmosphere / cable / whatever, hello to the quiet one, |
|
| 122903 |
Okay, so have fun
in Muir Woods, probably Muir Beach too -- maybe you'll run into an old friend
who lives to the right side of the beach as you are at the parking lot.
He has probably completed his conversion to Hobbithood by now. I myself
am still there on the other side up on top of the hill overlooking the Pacific,
at least an etheric self that thought it was so nice one day it did not wish
to leave. |
|
| 123003 |
I think you should
go for as much graphics memory as you can afford because you can't be sure
what you may wish to ask of your computer in the years to come. DVD,
multimedia, electronic encyclopedias, even the rare game that you may want,
might be compromised by an inadequate graphics card and you would find it
troublesome (but doable) to upgrade the card. Even though you may not
have expectations of high-end use of your computer, don't assume you will
never have to ask more of it. In short, given the changes we all see
all the time, err on the high side of computer memory and speed, hard disk
capacity, graphics and sound capability. This also will lengthen the
time before you feel a need to upgrade (thus maybe even save $). I suppose it is like buying a sewing machine -- though 98 percent of the time you may just use the basic stitches, maybe one Christmas you decide to turn a particular design into embroidery as presents. Well, now you want more from the good old home machine, and if it can rise to the occasion, you feel pretty smart. |
|
| 010104 |
This is an interesting
development, that may go somewhere [the NewsStand Reader] Bottom line: pretty
impressive. Looks like a newspaper. One mouses around a la Adobe
Reader. Since you travel a lot, you may like the Australian and New Zealand papers once in a while. NewsStand already has at least one paper in the UK, and, I assume, more to come, including magazines. One can imagine hordes of commuters wearing out their touch pads reading USA Today, or whatever. Kidding aside, this looks like a go for people who are traveling, or living in another country, or just married to their computers. May give newspapers another lease on life... And lead to yet bigger hard drives. Wottle they think of next? |
|
| 010504 |
Random thoughts..... --The thoughts are probably not that useful at this advanced state of the buying process. That is, you have done enough research that you probably have the best feel for what you will be content with. However... -- As I said, I am biased toward more graphics memory (and a good card, mine being GeForce 2, which has a good reputation and the GeForce line is up to at least 4), so I frowned at the Dell offering there. --Have to confess (these are thoughts, after all), that I don't have much use for HP any more. Her computer has been barely OK and it cannot be upgraded due to not being a real computer (HP cut the price by making many tweaks that add up to not much -- replaced real parts with cheap software workarounds). Also I have grown super-weary of HP printers and would not own one, unless it came free from heaven with twelve free printer cartridges. That said, I admit I know little about the quality of higher-end HP products, perhaps they are fine. Another thought, the only way to measure the price of something like a computer is how much per hour of use did it cost. In our cases, the cost is ultimately low, because we spend a LOT of time on these things. … --Keep your old system up and running for at least a while as a fallback because the new system may have some problems that need to be worked out. … The local Gateway store caused sticker shock in me that resulted in my never going back. … By the way, I read something interesting in some Usenet group: A fellow said he has two hard disks, the second is used strictly for data. The first has three partitions. The first two each have Windows XP installed such that he can boot to either (if one dies), and the third partition has Linux on it for all the free software that the Linux world provides... I like the way this person thinks. |
|
| 010604 |
Reply to your question
about writing, as a matter of fact, I am not much motivated to write lately.
The old give and take seems to be off-kilter in my various and sporadic correspondences.
I am doing some computer learning (programming) and doing a lot of reading,
especially in nature writing (I have the Burroughs Award list that I can
use to find some of the best writings of that type). … Yes, I would say I am in hunkered-down, winter reading, nodding by the virtual fire mode. There was a bright spot of good talk in the holidays. Good conversation is both rich and, sadly, rare. Most conversation is a kind of homage to the mundane and unimaginative: kids, family, illness -- fui! … Looking forward to your cookbook -- a very nice and thoughtful item to share with family and friends, and one that helps preserve something of your life and that of those you know best. … She and I exchanged the "gift" of being able "without nag of conscience" to order up to a certain amount in books from either a store or, more likely, the Internet. She got a bunch of Lord Dunsany's works, which I'll read too, as I've always been attracted to his strange imagination, and I have already received two fine used nature books: The Wonders I See by Terres, and The Desert Year by Krutch. … I have rearranged the case that is within reaching distance of my bed. (The bed, when set with a thick foam rectangle for support, is my favorite reading environment.) Now all the nature material is close, and there is also some literature and history. Add a fresh pack of cigs and coffee thermos full of French Roast coffee, and only hunger can provide enough motivation to get me up and away from that these mornings. What pleasure! I have all the qualifications of a sybarite, but money. But I do my humble best. |
|
| 010704 |
As to others not
reporting problems -- well, I doubt if it a problem with my software, though
stranger things have happened. Fact is, many people would not notice
anything unless their monitors blew up, and very few would give you feedback
on the issue. But I do, because I take communication seriously, as
I know you do also. There is also the possibility the margin problem
would not show up if the recipient's email was set to view as text only,
rather than html. … Yes, the nature reading is just what the doctor ordered, as people used to say. I read the first chapter of The Desert Year this morning. I haven't read any Joseph Wood Krutch for many years, but the first lines brought me immediately back to the particular flavor of his mind, and I regretted not having enjoyed his work for so long. The main current read is The Curious Naturalist which is surprisingly good for a National Geographic book (so many of them are a bit superficial). When I think of the good writing ahead of me in natural science, I am pleased in anticipation: Thoreau, Loren Eiseley, John Terres, John Burroughs, Krutch, and many others. … I'll pass on one interesting bit from The Octopus and the Orangutan by Eugene Linden: he describes an experiment with a chimpanzee. The chimpanzee was shown two plates of food and it had to choose one of them. The chosen plate was then given to another chimpanzee, and the remaining plate given to the chooser. Inevitably the chimp chose the plate with the greater amount of food, then was disappointed to get the plate with the lesser amount of food. But, when the chimpanzee was trained to use physical symbols which represented food and which could be traded for food, then the chimp was able to choose the lesser number of symbols on a plate, that would then be given to the other chimp, with the other plate with more food tokens being given to the chooser. This suggests that the chimp has the intellectual capacity to make the more beneficial decision, but it is short-circuited by immediate sensation. Hmm... … And you too, enjoy the mellow moods of winter, and let us spare a moment of pity for those who have fled its charms, as well as its bite, |
|
| 010804 |
If you ever wish
to physically print any of your works to a nice background, probably the
cheapest way is to buy a box of textured or colored paper at someplace like
Office Depot, and simply print in black or a colored font on that paper. |
|
| 010904 |
Too bad your current
machine is acting up -- maybe it knows you are about to move on, and it wants
you to have your share of computer woes while there is still time, or maybe
it is just sulking. … Aren't computers fun? And good luck with the car (another interesting but troublesome machine), |
|
| 011004 |
O Kaye Doke, good
luck with the cable, the running around, the conundrums, the shopping, the
burning of CDs, and all such modern-type crazinesses. Gone, I guess,
are the days when getting two yolks to an egg was the big excitement of the
week... |
|
| 011204 |
As for printing
in color for the front page, well, there are so many ways you could proceed.
A simple design with a moderate amount of color wouldn't be particularly
expensive to print. I found an inexpensive cardstock at (of all places)
Castle of Crap (oops, I mean Wal-Mart). … I guess it doesn't hurt much being laser zapped, but I would be nervously twitching inside while someone micro-fried my eye... Anyway, hope it helped in the long run. … I liked your closing comments about being a farm girl who has seen what hard times really are, and who thus can deal with a few hassles in the modern techy world when she has to. … Re your query about DVD (and ducking a bit): My current feeling is you should let your own sense of your needs be your best guide. When you asked for thoughts on computer buying, that's what I sent. I have a desire not to be an advocate of something that would cost you money, and that might not be of use to you. The thoughts were by way of bringing things to your attention, so you could consider and research them. However... The best answer in favor of DVD burning (assuming your research led you to the right hardware and software) is that it will be the new standard for data storage in terms of quantity of data. Right now it is all about high-quality sound and movies, but any data can be stored, including data files and images. |
|
| 011904 |
Sounds like a good
machine -- one to meet most needs you might have. I was able to move
a lot of stuff over using RW CDs, just deleting and rewriting as needed to
copy from the old machine, then putting the disk in the new one's CD drive
and copying again to wherever I wanted the files. Later I could have
done it more easily by moving the files over the wireless network.
Either way, there is some time involved in moving that much data, mostly
pictures, but some program install files I had collected over time, and of
course the other essential items you mentioned. Anyway, computers are a strange combination of mild torture and great fun. One wonders what they will be like to people in the future? Assuming no precipitous crash of the civilization, I imagine them becoming more a part of us, more like augmentational parts of ourselves, extending our reach in knowledge and expression and communication. Like all things related to us, it will have a light and a dark side. We will be cyborgs, basically, always pushing the possibilities. Hope we will be wise cyborgs... |
|
| 012104 |
I noticed the other
day an option in the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader that it will
read to you audibly from the pdf file if you wish. That is in the direction
things are going. Soon it will be common to use one's voice to write
emails and such. Interesting to contemplate a jet full of business
people muttering at their computers, and the computers muttering back, though
a quick headphone implant, good for cellphones too, would fix some of that.
It will be strange in talking to another person when they go blank for a
minute while they chat with their stockbrokers... |
|
| 012204 |
I agree about "when
I have the time" etc. I have tried to tell others about the convenience
of email in just those terms, saying "I read and send at my convenience,
and you read and send at yours". However I find that most people cannot
write, anymore than they can read, but they know their voices will utter
words into a cell phone with little sense of effort, thus the phone calls
when I am in the shower, or at dinner, or otherwise occupied. And that
reminds me of a saying that was current a few years ago: "if it's not written
down, it never happened". |
|
| 012304 |
I'm off to meet
the lady of the house for a celebratory meal and birthday book-buying fest
at Barnes & Ignoble. Hope the computer-oriented day goes smoothly.
(Perhaps everyone should get a couple weeks off when a new baby computer
is brought by the silicon stork -- bonding, and all that.) |
|
| 012604 |
The book may be
OK, but of course the title stinks. There are takeoffs too, with such
titles as Advanced Calculus For Idiots or Neurosurgery for the Completely
Clueless. These are eye-catching, but dopily insulting and even oxymoronic.
I have come to the conclusion there are two or three really good books per
topic/need-level, and the rest use the knowledge of these and add filler
for fillers of shelves. The problem is always: which are those two
or three good ones? Yet, to be sure, most books have something good
about them, if one has the time and patience to read them. I think that most learning comes from absorbing some information, then doing something with it. This works best when one is pursuing a goal, however modest. I liked your description to her of things going wrong, where small effort A led to compensation B which led to happenstance C which led to random chaos D which led to ... Blessed are those with whom the universe conspires toward a happy result. Also it behooves one to keep one's powder dry and cutlery sharpened, but alas wisdom is cheap... |
|
| 020504 |
They [ducks] endure weather that would put us away, and they walk (and swim), as the Navaho say, in beauty. |
|
| 020904 |
As you say, cocooning... I haven't much to say these days it seems. I am much occupied with my own interests, and maintaining the status quo, and with great reading (Edwin Way Teale, John Burroughs, Rachel Carson, Edwin Tunis, Joseph Krutch, et al) with the attendant meandering thoughts that go with that pleasure. … Haven't read any Chopra, but assume he is one of those in the long line of such whose relation to the universe is intuitive, positive, ecstatic. I am not attracted to this, as straight reality is a heady enough dose, but if you are finding worthwhile thoughts in him, then that is fine with me. |
|
| 021404 |
I have no idea
when I will do images [of ducks in falling snow], but you'll get some when
that happens. I appreciate your response to them, as always. I think I was colder than the ducks, maybe I am less magical. However, it did not help that my coat had to stay open so I could tuck in the camera to protect it from the falling crystals. I went to the park that snowy day specifically to record the duck/snow patterns. I had taken one decent image previously of snow on ducks' backs, and wanted better shots. |
|
| 022904 |
Glad you are home
safe and had a good time. The walks around Santa Monica were probably
enjoyable, especially the beaches and pier. I used to live in that
part of the world, though it has doubtless changed quite a bit, though they
can't do much about the Pacific Ocean -- I assume it is still there.
The Tar Pits sound interesting, I don't think I ever visited that.
The pits were hell on the clientele, but informative to us. The Ice
Ages wiped out whole ecosystems... |
|
