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Extracts 6
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| Email extracts from the period March 2005 through June, 2005 |
| 03/02/05 Of late I have been plumbing the heights, to mangle a term, of lassitude, sprinkled with mini-projects that have some hope of being accomplished. I am writing daily in the notebook, which is eventually transcribed to the journal. This may be taking away a little from letter-writing, but probably won't make much difference in the long run. I would like to see the flow of writing become like a flow of a mountain stream, or more likely, the ramble of a lowland brook, or as the Scot would say, a burn. It would be surprising if such writing did not need to be seriously edited, not to mention expurgated (dat ol' unconscious is reputed to be capable of outrageous utterings), but whether one likes it or no, that source is our most interesting and creative one. The surface mind is encumbered with trivia to the point of numbness; it is the callous of our mind, constantly abraded by the grit of blandstorms. The closest I've come to this "automatic writing" in the past is to make audio letters and just talk into a microphone for up to an hour. A recent project has been the translation of Scottish lowlands dialect (e.g. of Robert Burns) into English. The purpose is not to "improve" Burns, but to provide an easy way to understand the text. The poetry remains, of course, in the original language of the poet. This was done by creating a dictionary from his glossary, and from other sources, then doing a computer translation using a program I modified for the purpose. Lastly I did a final edit making just the changes to provide understanding, and 'tis done. I have included the complete translated Tam O' Shanter for your reading pleasure at the end of this email. To answer a question of yours about memory cards, I don't know for sure whether they "last forever". I did ask a salesman that question and he laughed and said they would last a long time. So, I wouldn't worry about it beyond having a spare card, which is a good idea anyway, same as it is with batteries. You may well be in a situation where you want to take a lot of images in hopes of getting a few good ones. These days a couple of 256 Mb cards are not very expensive and should take care of most needs. Or maybe two 512 Mb cards. My camera uses over one Mb to store its typical image, but your camera, and most digital cameras nowadays must use two or three times that storage space. The photographers of National Geographic do what they do by having great equipment and shooting fabulous amounts of film or digital shots. Situations vary, of course, sometimes one is in the presence of the rare, and naturally taking a bunch of shots is in order. Other times it is not the quantity of shots, but the care and perception and empathy that are the important things. In that case the camera is an extension of the mind. If I were to have the opportunity to start life over (that perennial fantasy), I would, among other things, formally study to master the techniques of photography. Yet, "at the end of the day" as the masters of current cliché say, it is the mind that is important. I read of a painter who became depressed when he lost the use of his right hand, until a mentor told him one is really painting with the mind, so he began painting with his left hand and did just fine. Thanks for saying I "would have been a wonderful professor" though I am in some doubt. Staring for years at a sea of student faces, knowing that most cannot process what one is saying or showing, would be (and has been) depressing for me. I admire the mentoring idea though, and can imagine being on either side of that. Is there much of that in your professional world? I cannot understand why there is not more of it. (And what is the recipient called -- a mentee? :) You talk about management types and the problems therewith. This is a topic I could dilate on for some time, but I'll just say we have made a wrong turning as a society to think there is such a thing as leadership where the leaders have little idea what skills and processes they are leading, and whose idea it is that leadership is primarily personal aggrandizement and PR and cheerleading. This is the sports model run wild. Imagine a general who thought he could BS his way through a war, not noticing serious problems of supply, morale, tactics, and whose strategy was informed by some current enthusiasm of pop psychologists. These people are filler, not leaders, not stars. They perpetuate themselves by means of their own group, that is, they are chosen by lightweights like themselves. A group of them have little more sense than a hive of termites. I ask you, from your experience, which is more important to them: efficient and productive work, or looking good and having no comebacks from above? I am less and less accepting of the "one-click" fix -- it is as limiting as idiot-proof photography. The constant drawback of becoming more skilled is rising aspiration. But that is a good kind of problem to have. And it is a problem that one's intuition was born to handle. You mention audio books and audible.com. I really have listened to little in that way for years. Now that I can read extensively, I do that, but if I were commuting, then audio books would come back into my life. I do think about using a personal tape or CD player to combat the noise pollution of grocery stores and other such places. Actually I would prefer vandalizing their systems -- melting them to rubble -- but that gets into hassle. I bitterly regret having to deal with people who foist their noise and grievously vile popular culture and ads on me. A local group who put on the Bellefonte Cruise want to permanently hang speakers to our fine light poles to facilitate their money-making yowling. Lordy, save us from the noise enthusiasts who want to orchestrate our very brains. We could solve all financial problems with a stupidity tax. (Yet a good deal of our economy would suffer if stupidity were actually reduced.) If it is valid that a tax-break to group X is a surcharge on group Y, then what is the surcharge on the average childless couple? As a numbers and financial person with no kids, you may have an idea about that, and I am very curious to know. Another question for you: we are told that health plans are much less in cost to groups, but is that really true? In these days of powerful computer databases, is there really a significant extra cost to insurers to deal with individuals, or is this just an excuse to bind workers to the workplace? I suspect there is one of those cozy conspiracies of the powerful to so arrange things that the pressures on workers keeps them in line. It is hard not to notice that, regardless of the improvements in technology, the same old constraints are eternally in place. The same kind of question applies to pension plans. Why not have everything portable? Yes, the rains of the southwest are astounding. I guess my lady caused some of that. She will have to er, "rain in" her special gifts. I don't think she did the Sumatra quake though. I have been reading a bunch in geology lately, and have come away with an appreciation for what a violent world we live in. The continents are skittering about on molten rock. We are in the temporarily warm period of an ice age that won't end for tens of thousands of years. Ocean currents are like god -- they give and they taketh away. Big rocks fall from the sky in a totally unpredictable manner. Our fond illusion that the earth was made for our comfort is just that -- an illusion. It is a dangerous world, and changing all the time. Meanwhile, the most specifically hurtful force for ill is a species of ape that evolved some interesting tricks in Africa and has since migrated to all parts of the globe. This creature is clever, but subject to irrationalities and hysteria. It has expanded phenomenally, and is now facing the consequences of its global machinations. No other species has ever been in this position, so there is no precedence, no guiding model. The poor things will have to figure it out on an ad hoc trial-and-error basis. The chances of easy success are nil. Odd that most of these clever apes don't realize this, but to do so would cause worried thought, not a favorite activity of this species. You mention, as I did too, politics. I am playing around with ideas of anti-partisanship. It is the incessant war of inadequate so-called philosophies that have damaged the public process. Yes, I was a bit rough on one correspondent, and have not heard from that quarter. That person got the brunt of my irritation with persons who are so sure they are right when they haven't the fragment of a remote clue what is going on. Such are part of the army of the ignorant whose fate it is to fill the ranks of the cannon-fodder in the idea wars. "Get involved", I have heard so often, and I think sure jump down in the sticky mosh-pit and howl with the others. Wouldn't it be a hoot to hear a "fly-on-the-wall" discussion among the leadership types about their followers? Or are they every bit as foolish? (Don't know which is the more scary thought.) As for being a state-employee, and the budget battles and freezes -- isn't it strange how it goes? The high leadership, which I assume is in place to a degree regardless of how the votes come and go, has failed to stabilize the income-outgo over the years. With our style of politics, there is never a true accounting for incompetence as time goes by, and administrations come and go. Frankly, democracy is not too good at this. The people will routinely applaud being bribed with their own money. All you have to do is con 50.01 percent of the people, and wow! you control the purse! This is pure joy for any charming but sociopathic politician/lawyer. And one never need apologize because the People did it! No accountability!!! As you can see, you do not need to apologize for "raving". Rolling on, and powered by the inner tensions resulting from having eyes and ears, is a very good basis for a letter. Who needs more bland stuff? --- Thanks for the letters -- yes, I did receive your email of 2/22/05 as well as the one of 2/26/05. Much to respond to so shall begin. Your two opening paragraphs describing your busy-ness were interesting. Interesting because they provided an abbreviated image (blur) of you in motion, and any image is welcome. Interesting because this forced interim period of your life is potentially a golden opportunity to take a look at the past and noodle around with potential futures anent you. I only hope you are not too busy to take advantage of that. While advice is universally known to be cheap to the point of valuelessness, we all give it anyway if we care a bit. Like the poor folks of Sumatra, we tend to get heaped up by the waves in windrows of jetsam and we talk solemnly later of our plans and how they worked out. So advice: forget other people for some days; above all, spend an appreciable time doing nothing to let the self settle out, and then think what *you* need and want. We should live the one life we each have to the fullest and, in the end, that will be the best thing for the others in our lives, too. Otherwise, we bring too little of ourselves to the presence of others. We need to have private enthusiasms and to take pleasure in the time we spend with ourselves. Otherwise, what do we really have to offer others? If all we have for others is to serve them, and they the same for us, then what is the point? Mutual servanthood? Some darkly grumpy part of myself wonders if this is any kind of a virtue. Does it mean we find ourselves taking an interest in others only as their fortunes decline? Yet, if you remain at ease with this process of yours, then discount and forget what I have said. Of course I know it may not be relevant, and if not, then to heck with it. As to your comments on "the business model", I will welcome them. I tend to ask you questions because I have watched you absorb information at a prodigal rate lo these many moons, and I assume you process this stuff, so have understandings of what is going on. Also, you have operated at a high level as far as social and fiscal mechanisms are concerned, and have had more than your share of opportunities to watch homo sapiens interact in fields of combat and cooperation, etc. When I ask you questions, they are not rhetorical -- I really want to know. Whether I'll agree is another matter, but I'll try to be articulate about my agreements and doubts, and so the conversation will flow on. It is possible that years spent in public life has given you a powerful reflex of tact and reservation, but relaxing that with a friend should be not too onerous. This sort of thing is in the realm of the informal, not formal or technical. It is "kicking it around"; it is "trying it on for size"; it is letting the feelings out, as when one walks the house dog. My own interest in politics and the doings of society are possibly different from yours. My take on things is as phenomena, sometimes amazing, sometimes agonizing, but mainly in the realm of psychology, psychohistory, pop and deep culture, philosophy, meanings, spectacles, extravaganzas, poetry, fool-news, etc. I really try to get away from partisanship and mechanical adherence to any so-called political or ethical philosophy. The Romans would practically go insane depending on the fortunes of the teams of athletes: the Reds and Blues, etc. These frenzied attachments would be passed on from father to son to grandson. Whenever I find myself wanting to parrot some absurdity regarding any team or party, I feel embarrassed, I've nearly joined the Roman boobery. Has anything wise ever come out of such partisanship? Is it ever deeper than Penn State fans yelling to kill Michigan State at a football game? Business model? How about the sports model to explain the American political process? (Turn in one fifth of your IQ on the way to the stands, folks!) Clint Eastwood in a recent interview: "Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It's doesn't take much thought. and when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left." But in my view, partisanship harms the thinking mind even in those far from the extremes. You may well have a problem in professional life because of an old ethical influence, possibly from those Mennonites. To be "hampered" by respect for process and productivity, could definitely lead to career malformations. I once told someone in our bookstore that where he and I thought the truth was the highest value, I had come to think that was not true for most people. Their highest value is how they feel, and truth be damned if it conflicts with that. If that is so, it explains quite a bit. Let the earnest debater enumerate his points, but he should remember logic wouldn't even get a person out of bed in the morning. Your comments about Aldo Leopold are interesting. His almost touching hesitancy in urging ecologists, etc. to speak out before final proof is assured is dated. The respect that people had for science has waned as scientists have gotten into highly charged political (i.e. money-issued) fights. They are fast becoming like the experts in trials -- to be seen as reflecting not truth, but a partisan point of view. Both politics and law besmirch any outsiders who play in their fields. Scientists would be more effective acting through peer groups with their research having blind-funding sources. Only the weight of heavy prestige can protect the findings of scientists from charges of bias. They should stay far from the pit of ordure that is "public debate". Hmm. "I would start a monthly or twice monthly print and art attractive journal or magazine on City To Do and Urban Lives, finding intellectual practioners of democracy and governance to reflect and prescribe on today's communities. But that is another venture..." Well, go for it, I say. At the worst it would be fun. If you did this in the right place, there would be advertisers coming to you to help get started. Lots of interviews, book reviews, cartoons, short stories -- you could reincarnate the New Yorker, but West Coast-style. Another possibility would be a newsletter for city planners and related people. Call it the Living Community. This could expand into a magazine with, again, the interviews, reviews, etc. Surely you have the contacts to call upon for such a venture. Academic freedom? Consider Political Correctness to be the inverse of Joe McCarthy's wildest dreams. Or How To Crush Free Speech in the Name of What I Like. The Left has so much to answer for. I have noticed an insidious pattern that the Right borrows, belatedly, the crowd "educating" techniques of the Left. And when the techniques come back on the Left, they don't like them as well. In fact they scream like murder. But I laugh. Governor of California? Are you a masochist? The bait shop sounds better, bait lacking political passion. ----- 03/03/05 I sent you some early verses of the original and translated versions of Tam O' Shanter by Robert Burns. Here is a later and complete version of the poem. I still find things to improve in the translations every time I go through it, but it is fairly readable now. You said you did not get much poetry in school, and I don't know if you ever got into it later. I don't claim to be as well-read in poetry as I would profit by, but this is a wonderful and fun Burns' work with some really fine lines in it. It is well worth reading, and if you do, I think you will like it. ----- 03/06/05 This is not really introducing anything you are not aware of, but I thought you might like to see other examples. Your advances so far have been impressive, and the results are graphically effective. In short, you have moved toward creating newsletters that are good-looking in themselves, and which contains graphic features that augment the feelings and meanings in your mind. ----- 03/07/05 Thanks for both the long email which I will eventually answer, and for the Elements program which arrived today. I have already installed and played with it and it is remarkably powerful for a theoretically lesser version of the big kahuna of graphics programs, PhotoShop. ----- 03/10/05 Some spontaneous ruminations in this letter. I have been thinking a bit about our respective differences in situation and experience, etc. Fortunately I can bridge the ignorances with inner appeal to experience and intuition, which has served me well in the past. I described myself recently to a correspondent, who is a recently retired geology professor, as a generalist. I have never been one to so burrow into any study as to become expert in it, or to delve endlessly among facts. I have noticed that the exemplars of fact-loving are to be found among engineers -- they never have met a fact they don't like, and amazingly to me, they remember these things for years and cherish their names and characteristics. (Oh yes, the Klystron tube Model 2-B -- now there was a tube! Superior in phase control and more stable than the so-called successor, the 2-D3, if ya' ask me.) I scratch my head in humble admiration. People of my tendency were honored at one time, and called well-rounded, broad-minded, adaptable humanists, and that tribe were literary people, early scientists, collectors, travel-writers, historians, sometimes top diplomats or government advisers. Our sort is reported to be passé. Colleges have even given up the pretense of supporting that broad vision of education. Now all is, as it were, a reflection of the awe engendered by the hard sciences. Some persons of extreme cortical convolution dabbled in the doings of atoms, and lo, the very soil of the desert vitrified as a little (but dirty) sun burst over Alamogordo. Telegraphs, trains, autos, telephones, plastics, dyes, tubes and transistors spilled from the cornucopia of science and technology. What were the humanists doing? Still quibbling over the nuances of the French Revolution, teaching languages to bored students, and wheezing on about the implications of the ethical life in terms so dry they could be used to preserve mummies. It is not hard to see why people were dazzled by the efforts of the technicians. Literally, colleges are now moving headlong toward being trade schools with pretensions. Perhaps this will be just a phase in the history of education, but at the moment it is tilted out of balance toward what is specifically desired by paycheck-writers. Yet simultaneously, we are told we will have six or seven careers in a lifetime. This is going to lead to some big tears and boo-hooing down the line. Too many students are fit only for a narrow activity, they lack the knowledge, sense of history, intellectual reach, or moral compass to negotiate the fitful future. True, they are adaptable, but they are not creative, nor are they people of gravitas, substantial, rich in character. They are what the society demands they be, but not what the society needs. The machines will tell us, or we will tell them, and I have no confidence in the generations I see about me. The question is: shall we live termite lives, adapting our amorphous selves to the designs for living that are set around us, or will we use the freedom from constraint that is a potential of the technical revolution to live great lives as individuals? At least for now, the direction is clear: we adapt to the needs of the machines, including that barely human machine -- the modern corporation. You asked about the horse image -- yes, it is one of the images I took of cousin's horses. I love photographing animals in their normal surroundings, and extended time among farm animals would be a rich photographic adventureland for me. I know many people can hardly "see" animals because of a lack of empathy with them. Many of these people would describe themselves as interested in people, but I wonder about that. Empathy is pretty basic, and if it is lacking completely for other living things, is it not also weak in responding to fellow humans? I don't really know, of course, but I do suspect that empathy, which is necessary to be socialized as a human, is of a wide range in intensity. Many people are functioning sociopaths to whom depravity is just too much trouble. (I hereby claim that line to win the Cynic's Bon Mot of the Week!) You will probably see many of my pictures return in new guise. I have taken several thousand images, and most are just sitting, waiting for some new interpretation. Also, there are many that have never been shown for one reason or another. While it is an undeniable pleasure to take new images, there is also pleasure in working on older ones that have not been given enough care in presentation. Back to farm animals, I dream of photographing pigs, cows, chickens, ducks, geese, oxen, reindeer, horses of all kinds. They smell good (usually), and are generally relaxing and interesting to be around. At this moment comes to mind a scene in a book about sand-hill cranes, I think it was. A farmer was protecting some orphans of these birds on his farm, but was worried about a cranky old taciturn cowboy who worked for him -- would the hired hand treat the birds well? Hearing some commotion one day, the farmer looked around the edge of the barn to find the birds dancing in their odd stilted way and the cowboy was hoorahing and dancing among them. No more worries about the cowboy. I remember too, the sheer size of the calm eyes of a pair of gigantic oxen my lady and I saw at an antique farm machines show. Those eyes, I thought then, were as big as tennis balls. I read in a diary from about 1805 written by a young boy, one night after plowing, the ox was fretful and didn't want to be left alone. He was dead by dawn. It must have seemed impossible to the boy that his huge friend could die so easily, like a sparrow or a rabbit. Thanks for the long and thoughtful responses to my questions. The health care question is interesting, aside from the life-and-death characteristics, and aside from the specifics of how the pricing is done. Despite your explanation, I question the application of supply and demand theories to the health issue. There is, in my mind, too much at stake to leave these issues to the vagaries of the "free" market. The market is as constrained as the busy little brains of business gnomes can make it. If the past is any basis of judgment, then eventually the sheer misery and insane expense of maintaining health will destroy the acceptance of privately-run health care. As it is, the health industry is a black hole threatening to suck in the rest of the economy. When there comes the inevitable economic slowdown, the cries of misery will increase proportionately. The U.S., being emotionally against a universal public health care (and it is true that our national government would do a very poor job of it), we must put ourselves through a lot of unnecessary turmoil and suffering before we think what is best to do. As to the Burns poetry, I have really enjoyed the translation process. Working on the Scottish-English dictionary is time-consuming, but I've always been interested in words, their etymologies and time-bound usages. This is a feast of that kind of thing, but points to big limitations of my library. Not even an Oxford English Dictionary! And I've lost a lot in various moves over the years, books, writings, drawings, photos. One exfoliates one's life that way. I have begun working on the other Burns poems, using the traditional division by years. Then, last night a bit of a shock -- I found a site that has Burns translations for a huge number of his poems. Still, in quickly comparing "Tams", I realized I had not been doing badly, and may well continue with my project. I may be able to create a section on the Larch site, and put ferocious copyright warnings on my stuff as this other site did. Not that I care much about that, I want people to use the translations... Here's a quote from your writings on mentoring: "I can help them but it's up to them." That is why I'm not really looking at "professoring" in the wrong way. I could, as you have done, work with an interested person to help an advance in understanding, but attempting to help a crowd of people, means the message is fighting all the time to get through to the one or two who can appreciate it. That is wearing. No one is more pro-child than one among my acquaintance, but in the end she was defeated by the rudeness, callousness, and intellectual vacuum of the modern student. Retired, she now specializes in babies. Using the analogy of a day, she now looks only at the dawn, and takes a pass on the defeats and enervations of the 10 AMs, 5 PMs, or any other time. Well, it is a strategy of sorts, though I could remind her that babies do tend to grow up. And the great mob of electro-barbarians is waiting to inculcate another mind. And that is the real school to which the millions commit their young. Ideally, in a fantasy of mine, a parent would want to find some isolated mountain school, with plenty of running about and screaming being encouraged (hard to be bad when one is bone-tired). The teachers would sit with the students at times around a fire and pass on the knowledge of the elders. Music would be from homemade instruments. It would be expected that every student could survive alone in a wilderness, and every student would have a complete vocational set of skills. That way they would not ever be afraid to try something, knowing they could make a living anytime, anywhere, come what may. These students, if properly educated, would not be alien to the everyday world of the cities, but the inhabitants of the cities would be alien to the students' world. Having true character, the mountain-trained people would be as giants to the average psychic dwarf of the electronic culture. With no fear of being separated from the hyped-up hive, the mountain students would be confident anywhere. Ah fantasy... I liked your discussion of tax breaks for couples with children. We hear that Americans don't care for social engineering, but actually they do if it pays well, as it does in this case. I hear that Japan is weeping and wailing over their population age distribution -- too many old non-money earning persons and too few young workers coming up to turn the industrial gears. I laugh bitterly when I see this kind of thing. Some European nations are singing the same sad song. It seems no matter how sophisticated we simians take ourselves to be, we slip into the old stupidities with just as much ease as our forebears. Instead of seeing the decline of population as an increase in resources per person, we imagine we were still farmers or herders where the production was in proportion to the working population. Hey folks, ever heard of the Industrial Revolution? Genetic engineering? Robotics? Infrastructural efficiencies? Do none of you have any imagination at all? If we did not universally act like nouveau riche who are haunted with the thought of falling back into disgrace, and if we did not up our expectations automatically to be greater than whatever state we are in, we wouldn't need to be fearful. We could plan decent lives, with a balance of work and leisure to live satisfying existences. My lady read me a news story this evening where Fidel Castro gave a 5 and half hour speech, mostly on the joys of rice cookers. The Cuban household average income is supposedly about $12 per month. In a new breakthrough for socialism, the government will subsidize the purchase of the vaunted rice cooker. Much applause and appreciation for the speech and the cooker. Well, guess what, soon these profligates will want indoor running water and 24-hour a day electricity. Compared with that scenario, maybe we gringos don't really need that new SUV, or the 50-inch TV, or going into debt to vacation in Switzerland. Maybe we have it good enough already. Imagine the consternation among the money people if the headlines screamed "NOT BUYING MORE CRAP FOR A WHILE, SAY THE PEOPLE" with sub-headline: "Lord knows, we have plenty now." Well, that was fun to write, but the fact is it is nearly universal to not know when enough is enough. Lust for stuff and status creates an ever receding target. I read a couple of nights ago that in 1890, one percent of the population had more wealth than the other 99%. We seem to be heading back in that direction, but it isn't poverty that is a problem here, it is endless stuff-lust. The whole culture seems to be behind this mindless desire, as if all religion, politics, philosophy, and art were melted down and reconstituted in one laser-like force to consume. Economy used to be mostly about meeting needs, now its very health depends on creating and meeting wants. The culture is one big commercial. We are spiritually in a bad way, if the word still has any meaning. It does not take a prophet to predict some fairly serious hard times being imposed by the ordinary laws of the natural world. What kind of people will live in a healthy world in the future? Ought we not figure that out and become those people in advance of the payback time? I imagine hearing some dumb-cluck voice whispering, "Oh no, let's do everything the hard foolish way and go through the worst of the result. Hey, maybe there'll be money in it!" Your quote "There are cliffs sliding and hills falling here and people are looking for the cities or counties to compensate them." is most apt. My lady found a story where a person demanded to act as his own attorney, was reluctantly allowed to do so by a judge, and who then lost the case, was suing the judge or the court or someone because the judge should have known he would do a lousy job and refused his demand. He obviously felt that his incompetence was sufficiently obvious that it was incompetent to pay any attention to him. It is hard to imagine a more inane lawsuit, but our wonderful legal fraternity has so mangled the public process, that absolute absurdity is a normal thing. I here forbear to write the many paragraphs detailing my opinion of the legal profession as you may want to retain an appetite for your next meal. I will say this though. In nearly all cases where one tries to follow lunacy backward from effect to cause to cause, etc. the money thing keeps coming up. I am reminded of a chilling little bit of prose a co-worker showed me once that described a father who brought home a stranger who stayed thereafter, who was entertaining, but shallow, was active all through the family's waking hours, who never seemed to really sleep, who robbed people of thousands of hours that would never be reclaimed -- it was, of course, the TV. Like TV, money is pervasive. It is very like a mindless super-bacillus that not only infects everyone, but which alters the very world to suit itself. Is it we, or is it IT, that calls the tune? On the lighter side, (hoping My lady has not already sent it for she laughed as hard as I had when she found it in the bathroom book) is a story from a slim volume of cowboy lore, song, and poetry: A Cowboy Jingle Carnation milk advertised in stock papers a prize for the best jingle praising its product. One ranch woman composed a jingle that went: Carnation milk, best in the lan', Comes to the table in a little red can. When she finished it, she asked one of the cowboys to mail it on his way through town. Some weeks later she received a curt letter from Carnation warning her about sending in an unsavory jingle. Perplexed, she started suspecting the cowboy of doctoring her jingle. Once accused, the cowboy freely confessed to adding a couple of lines "Jes' to give it a little more punch": Carnation milk, best in the lan', Comes to the table in a little red can. No teats to pull, no hay to pitch, Jes' punch a hole in the son of a ______. And so it goes, I don't think I was as thoughtful as you were in your letter, but I think it is a result of early Spring fever, of which I intend to have a heck of a case this year, ----- 03/16/05 I did all the puzzles you sent me -- it is a pleasant relaxation, isn't it? The USA map one was enjoyable, though the cow's head was lost. The circular ones did seem harder at first, but are really not -- just different. The images I uploaded were picked because they seemed good for puzzles. Sometimes mainly texture, sometimes bright colors for fun, sometimes for the satisfaction of seeing the final image. She likes them too, and she has had to give up working real jigsaw puzzles, though she likes it, for lack of space, so the computer is a good alternative. Like you, she does puzzles and games to relax and to keep "that part of my mind" exercised. --- I thought the great American West would have that effect on you. Its wide spaces, explicit landforms, its many choices of climate, its informality, and sheer bigness have a dramatic effect on folks from the more "intimate" East with the nearer horizons, and hidden nooks and crannies. Also, as you read more in Annals of the Former World, you will come to descriptions and discussions of some of the landscape you have seen, thus filling in some of your memories perhaps. As the weather warms, and the days brighten, I am more and more inclined to go out to make images -- have not done that in a while. I now have Adobe PhotoShop 7.0 on my computer, so will jump into one of those "learning curves". I have some of the skills already, but want much greater control over the finished image. I am less interested in the many tricks of that program, though am not above having some fun with such things once in a while. I did work on an image of a painting by the great Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman with yours truly inserted therein. I, and the swallows, like old barns. ----- 03/18/05 I have got interested in jigsaw puzzles and using some of my images for them due to your discovery of jigsaw site and sending me puzzles. I looked around for jigsaw programs and found one I like that I'm trying out for a while to see if it is worth buying. ----- 03/21/05 I am sending you a puzzle of a painting which I can identify with. I may eventually do as you have done, and send puzzles specific to the recipients, according to their taste or interests. Nice your cat is puzzling with you. As you say, the cat figures there must be something to it if his mistress is paying so much attention. We have liked jigsaw puzzles for many years as a way of taking a break and exercising the old noodle in a different way, so this electronic version allows us to do that without tying up a table (and tempting the birds of chaos). ----- 03/23/05 I am sending two puzzles so you will have a choice of which to do according to mood. These are a little bit easier, and fun because of the colors. As for working on web stuff, it is very reasonable to take breaks from it, turn to other things for a while, and come back refreshed. The playfulness of cats is a pleasure to watch. They have a most serious sense of fun. I remember thinking about (but never making) an "ideal" cat toy: it would be a box with four doors and an indestructible mouse would pop out a random door on a tether. When the cat lets go the mouse (I'm assuming he caught it), it would slither back in the box. After a variable length of time it would pop out another door. Imagine the scrutiny that box would get! --- I am glad to come. The spring is here and it behooves us to celebrate that fact. We can go to a park if the weather is warm, in which case we can collaborate on some simple picnic. Or we can hang out on your deck and do the same. If the weather is poor, we can invest in a couple of steaks, bake a couple of potatoes, toss up some salad, etc. I can bring a couple of my pielets for dessert. --- Sounds like a big and important change in your two lives. Also in your outlook. Perhaps that brush with the doctors recently had an effect? Anyway, the best of fortune to the young far traveler and to you two. As you say about the winters, unpleasant if one's lifestyle is not adapted to it. And it is especially noticeable in central PA that many people, even bright ones, make no adaptation to it at all, then they are astonished that they are discommoded. The general sense is that winter is here to inconvenience them unfairly. I wonder they do not en masse head for Florida. One of my former co-workers complained about being cold. I suggested she buy a warm coat. She did, and was happy to find herself more comfortable. Another occasion to shake the old gray locks. For myself, I like winter and, at its worst, makes the spring that much more wonderful. Others feel differently I know, and thus the population of CA is what? -- 30 million and rising. Still thinking about documentaries? Hmm, I have been reading some "animal" books sent by someone my lady knows at work. There must be many millions of animal lovers in the U.S. and books abound. Maybe a creative cinema person could tap into that market, especially if he had empathy for animals -- whatcha think? ----- 03/25/05 Here are two more puzzles for your collection. They are ones I did a few days ago -- of fewer pieces and fun to do. The one of the mill was surprisingly enjoyable, and it made me think of the variety of types that can hold one's interest. Bright colors, sometimes muted ones, or texture, or the surprise of the end result, or the inherent interest of the subject -- these can all work as a puzzle. May be easier to define what makes for a poor puzzle than what works to make a good one. ----- 03/26/05 That is good you are falling behind -- that means I am getting ahead of you. I'll keep sending them for a while until you have plenty of your own. I agree bright colors are nice in a puzzle, but I don't think that defines what is a good puzzle. Nor do I think I can define that. I have been thinking about it, and I realize it is elusive. While it is enjoyable to do, say, bright multi-colored balloons or sailing boats, it would get boring to do any one type after a while. Too much sky or too much undefined vegetation -- even flowers or crowd scenes -- would pall after doing several. So, variety helps, inherent interest helps, color is nice, texture is good, etc. When color and texture fail, then one looks for specific shapes of pieces, so some sections can be easily identified and others not. Anyway, it is an interesting question: what makes a good puzzle? I have been surprised in both directions, thinking an image should be a winner, but being disappointed in the resulting puzzle, and vice versa. I wonder if the world is ready for a highly paid and snooty jigsaw puzzle reviewer for maybe The New York Times? "This new work by Velda Glotnik is hardly adds lustre to the artist's ouvre. It is an ambivalent work wearing the tatters of a mundane provenance. Derivitive, undefined, tawdry -- it is irrelevant to itself, ipso facto failing to resonate with the reigning ethos or the vital ambiguities of the age. Also there is too much orange in it." As you say, different intelligences, or perhaps different every aspect of the psyche. I knew an Indian once who, while we were bouncing through the "bush", spotted a wrench lying in the grass beside the road. We could have driven a million miles before I would have seen such a thing. ----- 'Tis very late and consciousness is slipping away, and me too... --- My lady and I enjoyed the presentations. This is a good way to share experiences between friends. It has the some of the advantages of giving a slide show, without the disadvantages. If you decide to go further, you could add sound to the show. Music, artfully chosen, might be good. Voice over, giving comments and even ambient sounds recorded at the site of the photos, could enhance the finished "show". The sky is the limit, it seems. Of course all that would take a lot of file space, but in these days of recording CDs and now DVDs (I have recorded on DVD), file size is less important. All three of the presentations worked to roll along the experience, as if the viewer where on that vacation with you. I remember you said that note-taking was hard for you, as it is for me, that is, taking notes in "real time" as the experience is happening. Yet it has been said a note taken in the field does more to capture the experience than any amount of remembering... Don't know if you want constructive criticism, but to a limited degree I'll assume you do. Here are some observations. --Maybe warn the viewer when it is the last slide --More route information if possible, it was hard to picture that. Maybe take map photos and crop them, etc. (Or later, scan them) --While the general look was good for the subject, it could be enhanced by modifying (if I remember PowerPoint at all) the Master slide, which controls the "look and feel". --I was puzzled by the general fuzziness of the images. Some of that may be the PowerPoint image-handling software. I am guessing you dumped huge photos into it and those were automatically made smaller. Whatever, it degraded the image to an unacceptable degree (to me, who is fussy about that because of years of looking at images). I am sure there are ways to optimize the images for PowerPoint presentations. Here is one of your images split into an enhanced part on the left, and the original on the right. This is only an partial example of enhancement, limited by my having to work with the PowerPoint version of your image, rather than the original. The original image on the right is flattened in tone, and not sharp. So as far as images are concerned there are two related issues, the image enhancement itself, and making sure PowerPoint doesn't lose image quality. One can do much with photos, most of them are "problem images" in some way and need to be worked on. For example, the desert sky is so bright it forces the camera to darken the foreground. If you shoot for foreground, the sky is washed out. Our brains can compensate, and photo enhancement can do the same thing. All of Ansel Adams great images were seriously massaged in the privacy of the darkroom. In sum, I think you did a good thing with your new equipment. I have spent a bit of time trying to develop ways to take others on journeys with me, and I applaud your approach to this. P.S. Here is an image of mine, with the left side enhanced. The right is not much changed from the original which was taken late in the afternoon of a heavily overcast day. My point is that "darkroom work" can make a lot of difference. ----- 03/29/05 These are two more puzzles from recent efforts. I am only sending you the puzzles in the range of 120-160 pieces. Also am not sending the more "atmospheric" or misty ones, on the assumption you wouldn't like them as much, but let me know if you would like me to send that type as well. By now you may have plenty of puzzles of your own to work, so let me know if you want fewer puzzles from me. I have some to catch up on to send to you, then I'll start sending more recent ones of paintings. I may send two more before the end of the day. ----- 03/30/05 Here is a misty scene of my town in winter, and for contrast, a distinctly non-misty courthouse from an image I took today (the sunny day, first of the spring, pried me out of house). I used some anti-distortion to partially correct the angles of the building -- a technique I have very rarely used. Yes, the bridge would be good to photograph. I did some quick research on old Rt 40, and found some "S" bridges, though not sure any were what you photographed. If I were to get out and about more in historic country, there are no doubt hundreds of fine photo subjects waiting. Even the details of old architecture are fascinating for shapes and textures. The artistic conscience is nagging me, but it must contend with world-class lassitude... Thanks for the research. Interesting about your psychologist and his patients and jigsaw puzzles. I have often thought that when a person is mentally stressed, the first major mental ability to suffer is the decision-making faculty. In doing therapeutic craft, or art, or jigsaw puzzles, the patient is exercising decision-making in a different emotional context than everyday life, and so restoring balance to the mind. ----- 03/31/05 As to the Toll House, I know there are real image treasures out there if I would just get off my derriere. This is chores-day, so off to spiffy things up, --- I may try the junglefowl again later with another image, or maybe use Banty chickens. Anyway, the jungle fowl, progenitor of all chickens, is an amazing looking bird. I would like to photograph it and other chickens sometime. --- You got me interested in looking for midi files, and searching for "free midi files" got me a number of search hits. I downloaded some tunes, stuck the songs in the Jigsaws folder, and made a couple of puzzles, of an equine nature, with new music. They are attached to this message. There are a lot of classical midi files available. Probably best to stick to shorter pieces to avoid fat files. Anyway, it is fun, though my lady prefers no music, and I often turn the sound down or off myself. On choresday (as it was today), I cut loose on music and listen to my old tapes of my personal selection of folk music, developed from NPR folk show recordings. It is not only beautiful sound, but the poetry of many songs feeds my need for that. The rest of the week is beautiful too -- lovely silence (as far as the world allows). ----- 04/02/05 Our Ohio friend is so entranced with this jigsaw puzzle program she is going to buy it. She just sent me three puzzles made from images she has downloaded from a travel site. I may buy the program too as it is a fun way to share images. Yes, tea is in order for the day, I'm about to make some. Poor weather is really just another blessing in encouraging lazing, reading, maybe planning gardens, idling through photo albums and memory lane, thinking of good old times and friends... Do younger people ever do this, one wonders? This is also the premier month for watching birds as the leaves have not yet filled the trees, but the birds are coming back with their heads filled with notions of nesting and young ones. Later in the year, one hears the birds more than one sees them. By all means we should have picnics in beautiful locations, ones with water and wildlife. Snap a few pictures, eat a sandwich, snap a few pictures eat some pie, snap a few... and like that. Have not identified the birds, except they may have been mergansers (fish-eating ducks). Could not find any bird all white below the mid-neck, and black above. So, we just could not see enough detail for positive identification -- frustrating. ----- 04/03/05 There is a lot of free stuff out there, but much of it is not worthwhile, so good luck in looking for the better things. Glad you liked In Burro Heaven. I liked it too, when I worked the puzzle. The tune is "Peace in the Valley" and I enclosed it as an attachment. Yes, I know what you mean by backing off on jigsaws. It's the old "a balance in all things" motto. On the other hand, it is natural to throw oneself into an enthusiasm, then tune it down in time. By all means, do not neglect your cat. Our pets give us so much in enriching our lives and keeping us emotionally sound. --- You are welcome, glad you take pleasure in them. I have finally, after working with the program for 18 days and comparing it to other programs, decided to buy it, which I've done. My lady and I have truly enjoyed working the puzzles as a way to exercise that part of the brain, and I have had a kick creating them. I enjoy seeing my images in a new guise, and there are great free photos from the web as well. Pass on any you particularly like to family and friends if you wish. My lady thinks playing a puzzle on her work computer that is 21 inch would be moderately far out. ----- 04/05/05 Am pleased the music is working for you. I will have to look for more of it, perhaps a little longer so the repetition does not get distracting. We here have sent some puzzles to a friend and she said "You are ruining my life, I have done three already and can't wait for more!" So there is one form of enthusiasm. And the puzzles are nice in that they are of good quality and the choice of the right image is based on who the sender and receiver are. They can be very specific to a shared memory, or mutual interest. ----- 04/06/05 Am pleased my comments were useful. Forgive the send of a fat file, I know you are concerned about that, but it is often necessary to send such things, and any ISP that cannot handle that is not doing a good job. I created a quick presentation with a unique look (one doesn't ever want to copy one of Microsoft templates for a real presentation, of course). Any presentation can be saved as a template, so if you create something really good, that suits you, the "look and feel" can be used again and again. I modified the Slide Master and the Title Master, then used the outline view to make some quick "relevant" text for a series of slides. I found it was easy to work back and forth between the Slide View and the Outline View (little buttons, bottom left). I popped in some images too. Anyway, have a look at what I sent. I am sending it as a presentation, but it could be saved as a design template and used to give the standard look to all slides. The sound files could then be linked into slides. Of course, if space is no problem (storing on a CD or DVD), then one can record into PowerPoint, slide by slide, which I think is stored as fat WAV files. Music would still need to be brought in from pre-existing files. There are a lot of free midi files on the good old Web, and you could use those. As you probably know, it is possible with PowerPoint to create a complete presentation with voice-over, music, animated effects, etc. and have it run constantly, or when the user presses a key. This sort of thing is used at booths to provide an overview for the interested members of the milling throng. I think your vacation could provide a great practice theme for learning more of the idiosyncrasies of PowerPoint. Too bad about your course not being attended, but the current crowd needs more than information, insight, and understanding to get them excited -- they are in a sense struck numb by the hoses of high-pressure blather aimed at their heads day and night. Remember, I did say something like that before in urging a "show" as well as a "tell". On the other hand, you really don't need them right now. Better to do what is satisfying to you, slowly and gracefully, than rush about trying to please others. I know old habits die hard, but it is you that you need to please, not them. And better, of course, to do a small number of things well, than many things too hurried. You are retired after all. That means the world is at your beck and call, after so many years the other way round. I interpret that to mean it is time to enjoy life, have good plain fun, and to be sure also to do a few things better than ever. I think above all it is important to avoid being roped into other people's big projects -- just smile, pretend to think it over, and, shaking the head reluctantly and regretfully, say no. Humble one's projects may be, but they are one's own. Meanwhile, to paraphrase a line from a truly bad novel, "the era is running down like a cheap watch". --- Yes, copyright free music would probably be useful to lots of people, for example those doing PowerPoint presentations would like to pop in some music to play during the slides. So far, the midi music is all synthesizer stuff, and that's what it was made for originally, I think -- don't know for sure. She should experiment more. Too many people quit with the first difficulty. The files you sent could be handled easily by right-clicking on them and choose Open or (better) Save. Also Save All is an option, and I used this to put them both in the folder. The key is being able to navigate to where the puzzles are to be saved and then later to the saved puzzles. Can you wear your super-boots (whatever the leg compression gizmo is called) while you sit? If not, you may have to think about getting a laptop sometime down the line. I was at the park today and saw an older fellow sitting at a picnic table and he was working (or playing) on a laptop computer. It looked a little strange, but his office decor was great what with the 80 degree temperature, the laughing kids, the ducks, the self-important robins playing hell with the earthworms... --- I had to send this immediately. I had an idea a few minutes ago of how much fun it would be to send a puzzle of the Great Seal of a state to a person in that state. I quickly found the Ohio Great Seal and made a puzzle of it. Then I thought what about the state song? I found that "Beautiful Ohio" is Ohio's state song and wonder of wonders, I found a midi file of it and the lyrics -- bonanza! So here it is, all in 15 minutes! Hurray for the good old Web. ----- 04/07/05 You are quite fast, faster than me anyway. The Autumn puzzle is probably about 5 or 6 on the Mohs scale of hardness. I had the notion last night of creating puzzles for people in various states of the union, using the Great Seal of the state, and putting in the State Song too for music. I started with Ohio ( a state noteworthy for engendering me, with Mom and Dad's assistance). Then of course I did California which has a very cool Great Seal. The State Song, "I Love You California", will never make the top ten of the pop charts. I added, with advice from my spouse (would the plural of that be spice?), two more puzzlesfor your collection, both of birds. --- No, the junglefowl is native to southern Asia, and though they are raised here as exotic birds (as far as I know), and I've never seen one. All chickens derive from them, so they say. I was surprised how few images of them were on the Web when I searched for them. ----- 04/08/05 I liked the illustrations in a book I have from the library -- A World of Watchers which is an informal history of birdwatching. The paintings are by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, a gifted painter. The gyrfalcon is an exceptional work; I try to imagine using water color with that degree of facility. The Route 66 A.D. book sounds good. I have, at various times, read in the history and writings of the Roman republic and Empire -- it is always surprising how advanced they were. Their great gifts were discipline and organization. They did amazing things in engineering, the military "arts", and in solving problems generally. It is endlessly fascinating to contemplate why they were not able to continue advancing beyond a certain point, and what lessons they have for us today. Their culture seemed to begin unraveling faster than they could restore order and creativity. In other words, they were swamped by problems that dragged them down faster than they could climb up. This is worth conjuring on -- the idea that it is not always the disaster that gets you, it might be those little issues breeding in the corner... ----- 04/09/05 Two more puzzles for your collection. As you can see from what I've done, I am enjoying finding new subjects for puzzles -- my images, paintings and etchings, posters, money, coats of arms, Great Seals, maybe maps, old charts, etc. The Texas Quail image has something to do with the federal Duck Stamp program, but I'm not sure what. If you do a CD, you will be able to get over 1000 puzzles on it if your puzzle-creating faculty holds up that long :-) I noticed in working one of your Italian images that you found some good Italian sounding music for it -- nice. --- I am enjoying using different kinds of images from varied sources for the puzzles. I am fussy though, I have saved a number of images with high hopes, but have never used because they didn't say "Puzzle" when I looked at them. Some I do anyway, but am not sure until I work them. I find it nearly impossible to say what makes a great puzzle -- the only sure test is, having worked it, one is satisfied. That painter's works are an exception so far -- they are always good for puzzles it seems. O well (as you might say), live and learn, --- This seems a day to do puzzles, though I promised myself I would catch up on transcribing my daily notes. Well, I've done some -- enough to justify some creative displacement activity. Both of these puzzles are relaxing and peaceful in nature, good for a mood like being a migrating duck with a nice tailwind. As to saving on CD, I think 1000 is conservative for how many you could save. You could also have categories by putting different types in their own folders. Really though, maybe it is best to just send these things as gifts du jour, rather than wholesale them out, so to speak. The sense of sharing is better enhanced that way. Also, one is changing constantly, and responding to what people like, so day by day might be the way to go. Then, after some months of doing them, you may want to do a "Best Of..." and then a CD would be the ticket. Just some idle thoughts... Too bad about her, a sense of humor is just about essential in life. You may have to experiment with her to find just what humor she does have, and try to build from there. Even if you had no luck, it would be interesting to try. Good luck on the horizontal-leg issue. I try daily to give homage to the gods of comfort and, unlike most gods, they reward one in real time. To quote me, pleasure is its own reward. ----- 04/11/05 Can't say I have used this beautiful sunny day in a manner it deserves. However, I did photograph a truly lovely flower, and turn it into this jigsaw puzzle, so if it gives anything like the pleasure to work the puzzle as it did to create it, the day is not wasted. P.S. Worked your revenge puzzle -- good little homily to maybe embroider :^D --- The puzzle image is one I made today of the flower of the amaryllis plant you gave us. The plant hangs on bravely even in this clime, and with a north-facing window as its only view of the natural world. As to the puzzle, the computer version of a jigsaw puzzle has the same relaxing effect as a physical jigsaw puzzle. We have always liked them, but it is impossible to leave one set up, especially as cockatiels like to chew on the pieces. So, the computer version has restored an old pleasure. ----- 04/12/05 I thought you would especially like the amaryllis puzzle. And yes, Amazing Grace seemed the right tune for it -- I didn't even hesitate when picking it. Sometimes things go well and it behooves us to enjoy it when it happens, as it did with that beautiful flower that is still going strong. I pollinated it with the other flower's pollen so to watch it grow fat with seeds instead of merely withering away. I have amaryllis plants two years old that I have grown from seeds. It will be a great day when any of them flower. Spiritual? No, probably not, at least as the word is mostly used. Nor am I a materialist, or any other "ist" that I know of. I'm just someone who tries to pay attention to life and world as it is experienced and who aspires to have a reaction to it that it deserves. I have looked at philosophies and religions and see little there to add to the understandings and feelings I have while living. There is much truth in them, but it is all mixed up with lesser things, and no one has any key or perfect wisdom that ends the search for how to live the good life. As I've said before, and in his own way what your son said, it is not becoming, but being, that is so satisfying. Setting aside one's limitations and efforts and slipping into day or night like putting on one's perfect clothes and being a part of all that is -- so easy when it happens that it is an effort to remember how long one has been without it for no good reason. ----- 04/13/05 Surely blondes are a religious matter, and probably Easter too, so one should be circumspect. But then there was the blonde who finally decided out why her shoes had TIFF printed in them -- Toes Go In First. ----- 04/14/05 I have been so productive today I am at risk of excess virtue. I did know that story of Julius Caesar, I remember being suitably amazed when I read it. He was indeed a Roman very aware of his nobility, and few men were ever so competent. Given his general behavior when young, it is interesting he became often rather forgiving and generous in later years. It could be he thought it expedient, but whatever the reason, he behaved in a more civilized way than most people at his level in his own time and later too. It is probably an historical shame he did not "beware the ides of March". ----- 04/16/05 You are now in the exalted space of my address book. I'm sure a warm glow tingles over every molecule of your outer corpus. Already you must be vibrating with sheer pleasure at being a part of the World Wide Web, land of dubious information, money, pizzazz, opinion, unsubstantiated rumor, hype, manipulation, money, and money. Saw the movie "Sin City" recently -- the world of graphic novel meets Hollywood. Not bad. The director said he wanted to turn a movie into a graphic novel, instead of the other way around. I had an idea yesterday for a graphic novel or movie: spacers with a taste for meat land on Earth, find a likely edible primate, do some genetic changing that leads the primate to ultimately develop civilization. The spacers set their alarm watches for five million years and then leave. The main effect of the genetic change is to convert a lot of the biosphere into billions of these augmented simians. Then comes harvest time, the spacers land and start feasting, saying "Isn't that cute, they are hurling nuclear warheads against us -- HA ha! Pass me another human." Puts another interpretation on civilization, doesn't it? --- After listening to so many songs, I have begun to long for real music. Piano and guitar music sound fine on a synthesizer but some of the other instruments leave a lot to be desired. I came across a young Japanese girl who is a well-known pianist now. She began learning piano at age six but began composing at age eight. I put her name in Google and came up with 360 some entries. I downloaded the songs that she had listed. I’ll include one of them, also. I recently downloaded a lot of midi files, but I theoretically must listen to it all and delete poor files -- that takes a lot of time. The irony is that I, unlike you, usually turn the music off after a few minutes, or even earlier when I'm doing puzzles. In short, I like messing with the music, but am not sure I want to spend as much time as necessary to do a really great job. It is true I do take some time with the puzzles -- I especially focus on the images -- the personal shots, the paintings, etc. Yet even so, there are some puzzles that are inherently harder than others, and I think that's OK in that variety is a good thing (but some people may complain anyway, saying "too easy" or "too hard"). I am not, as you know, a fan of Earthlink. I think it is very inappropriate to be asking people for either passwords or credit card numbers. This is NOT standard practice. It often is seen in fake requests by scam artists to get you to reveal personal information. If the password were mangled by Earthlink, they should ask you to log on under a temporary password they provide and then change the password yourself. They NEVER need to know your password. Be very careful of such requests. Another thing, a lot of American companies have fired domestic workers in customer service and have shipped their jobs to India. My deceased bird pal Pepper clipped off a couple of earphone wires in her time and I had to buy new earphones (no way to fix those tiny wires). She would sit happily for a long time lulling me into obliviousness, then in an idle notion, reach down and "snip". Yet ya can't paddle birds as their ends are pointed (not that I ever would anyway). ----- 04/22/05 Having done the puzzles, I will now transcribe some notes to the journal. The content is mostly ho-hum, but the discipline no doubt compounds virtue. Regarding her, she obviously has a learning disability: an inattention augmented by hubris. Perhaps she can find a 12-Step program somewhere to assist, as in "Hello, I'm So-and-so and I am a goof." To use the argument that she does not have to learn something because she can slide the problem to someone else is not too swift. But it is interesting in the larger sense to realize that raw intelligence (we're assuming here it's true in her case) does not save a person from being foolish or shallow. Without the right habit of mind and the right individuality of attitude, intellect is helpless. It is not logic that guides one through the world, it is will and curiosity. Many, perhaps most, people are such flock-creatures, they cannot mentally travel new paths because they are afraid, "what would the flock say?" So, off to the journal-mines for awhile. I've been keeping the journal for over five months now, and have begun reading in the log of the ship self. Thank goodness the seas have been mostly calm. Have been thinking a lot about evolution lately -- am not so in agreement with the savants on it in one important way. I tend to see evolution not as the exclusive characteristic of living things, but of the natural world in general. Heraclitus, I think it was, who saw change as the basic fact of all existence, and it isn't such a great step to imagine some changing things hanging around longer than others because they have an innate tendency to persist and because they actively alter themselves and the world to allow ongoingness. Perhaps it is more useful to see life is the exemplar of this universal tendency rather than the creator of it. Another point worth mentioning, most thinkers try to understand evolution in stark survival terms, but is seems to me that everything changes. Many changes must make no difference to immediate survival, or very little. This subtle distinction may allow for much more versatility in life's responses to its changing world. In the course of the ages, and of luck good and bad, the many variations do probably get harshly filtered. Yet the long placid periods of experimentation are responsible for many or most of the successes. And to be balanced, it is no doubt true that much that is superb is lost for no good reason at all. For myself, the vision of the changing world generating such an array of intricacy and beauty and somberness without being designed or even guided is a profound one -- it means these great things we observe and we sense are inherent in the nature of existence. As Lao Tzu would say, "the way of all things". Some say "God" and look up, but really they should look down and down to the smallest of things, the simplest, the most humble, to find the generator of creation in its purest form. Meanwhile the astrophysicists are speculating like crazy on worlds without number, amen... ----- 04/23/05 Very pleased you are enjoying the puzzles. They are relaxing, aren't they. It makes me think there are sections of the brain that are frustrated, demoralized, downtrodden, etc. because they are so rarely called upon. (There are perhaps Communist brain parts trying to organize them for a hostile takeover.) Jigsaw puzzles obviously satisfy some of these ignored sections. I just finished one that is out of time-sequence for doing it because as she and I were chatting and watching the screensaver rotating its images, my lady said the shot of the Spring fish would make a good shot & I said I had a better one of them and would send a puzzle of it. I did, sent it to her, and she will shortly send it on to you (doing it this way keeps my confusion level down to a mere bafflement). ----- 04/27/05 I was actually working a puzzle when you called and it is one of my favorites. It is called Cornucopia of the World after its obvious theme: it is an old poster I got by scanning in an image from one of the Old West series of Time-Life books. It urges people to head west to the golden state, promising the sun, moon, and stars at a very reasonable rate. It is full of florid language and beautiful old typefaces with plenty of clues as to where the pieces go. It is fun to do, but still with a little challenge. I decided to send it in case doing a puzzle of yourself doesn't happen to appeal at the moment. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. P.S. Puzzles cure one of bronchial problems and are salutary to all organs of the body (wasn't sure you knew that). --- By now my lady is ensconced, conversing hugely, hopefully enjoying herself in a plush nook of Toronto. --- Some songs are good, but it is very hard to find first-rate midi songs (midi songs are done on a synthesizer) because many musicians who create these things are frankly not very good -- the sort of person doomed to tinkle away in the cheapest of piano bars. Yet there are some good pieces that I have found, showing that musical ability can overcome even synthesizers... ----- 04/28/05 You're up late, I caught ya. 'Course that means I'm up late too, but that doesn't count. My lady is probably fast asleep in a good hotel bed after a good meal and hours of catch-up chat with her old friend. She is a good sort, I hope you get a chance to meet her. Very pleased you enjoy the presents, that's what they are for, and we had fun picking them out. Hurray for used cheap stuff as that means more and better presents. Yes, the Cornucopia is practically a chapter in an American history book by itself: it certainly gets across the buoyant enthusiasm of the boosters. And now, if one wishes to perceive it, the poster has a bittersweet quality... --- I have been a good boy today and have beavered away at household chores and petted birds and thunk good thoughts, so I rewarded myself by finding a good image site and downloading some of them for jigsaw puzzles. I like using my photos for puzzles, but also I want to find other images that seem to be good for puzzles because not all are by any means. It is great that doing jigsaws has been restored to us via computer -- it helps make up for computers often being a pain in a southerly place. --- Yes, folder management is not hard, but real important for organizing one's files. Many people neglect this, and wonder why they can't find anything. Good idea to save to CD for permanent storage rather than printing out. As you say, the cost (outrageous cost) of ink. The manufacturers hurt themselves by discouraging people from printing what they wish -- especially photos which take a LOT of ink. Cats are cats generally speaking, as you comment. The cheetah is an odd duck for a cat, but most cats follow the general plan. I have just been reading about bobcats, and they are indeed catlike in all they do. Their very existence is threatened by their habit of being curious and tapping things with a forepaw and having a trap snap shut. I wouldn't mind being king for a day and forever banning traps. I think I read somewhere that the date of domesticating cats has been pushed back further than was thought before, eight thousand years was it, I'm not sure. And yes, I think the tabby is very close in appearance to the small wild cat of the Nile Valley. As you say, they are comfort aficionados and can be relied upon to detect the ideal curling-up spot. Perhaps we should attach a sensor to the cats and have it beam data to the house heat pump, saying in effect "make everything like that". One of the main features of cats is they keep a chunk of kittenhood in them and part of them is forever young. We humans are like that too, and we sense that in cats and respond to their playfulness. In nature the cat walks alone, as Kipling expressed it, but the kitten in them remembers that time with mom and the siblings and it is that cat that we have with us today. Dogs, on the other hand, have inherited a complex social existence from wolves, and that gives them a good deal of their nature. Sometime if you have dried fish, try Hershi on that and see if it makes any difference. Some cats just hate wet and/or gooey food and fish often tends to be that way. I can imagine them saying to themselves "Fui, this is messy. I'd be all day cleaning up after eating that!" With one of our cats I had to be very careful in moistening the Purina; too wet and it would stay in the bowl. Come to think of it, I had to moisten it with a tablespoon of fishy cat food and a few drops of water and stir it just so. As for her, it is probably worth trying to figure out why this "lack of creativity" exists in so many people, and most obviously in those who are retired. I think it has to do with the role other people play in their lives. So many people are merely reactive to the actions of others, so if the "others" are removed or reduced severely in number, the person has nothing to react to. In effect, other people are the whole world for them; there are no stars, seasons, trees, ducks -- just people. Too bad, because then the person has no experience in really living; they are just "applause machines" for others. In hopeless cases, the person should, I suppose, become a volunteer or even a patient in order to restore the abbreviated life they had. ----- 04/30/05 Nice to see you are still bubbling along. We are indeed hale and as happy "as if we were in our right minds", as the saying goes. And so it goes. As for our world that you ask about, it is a few hours from Mayday, so things are pretty good. My lady is just back from a trip to Toronto to see an old friend for a couple of days. I am continuing my reading and journal-keeping, and am getting out to photograph the animals and plants of the area about once a week. Spring has been slow to be sprung it seems, though the birds have increased and their inclinations, like the young man's fancy, seem to turn to thoughts of love. You were correct in surmising that I had not written to you because you did not reply to my email, as I persist in thinking of letters as a form of dialog. Old-fashioned me. I assure you that writing to politicians is no substitute for writing to me or any other real person. As to politics, I have said my say on it, it bores me when it doesn't infuriate me. If I paid attention to it, I would be permanently angry and a raving misanthrope. However, having said that, I have to admit there have been victories in the fight for the good and decent public life. I have just been reading in Audubon magazine, centennial edition, that "we are winning". They list many vile laws and rapacious projects sent back to hell by means of activism. The strength of my feelings in favor of wildlife and wild lands is so strong that I would probably be consumed by it or be arrested with my fingers deep in the throat of some lawmaker or lobbyist. I put my website link on your computer so you can go there when you wish. My latest project (and one I need to get back to soon) is "translating" the poems of Robert Burns. Have a look at what I've done so far. ----- 05/03/05 One of the nicer things about living in a "temperate" climate is the guilt-free enjoyment of reading, pottering about, idling through, messing with, and playing with jigsaws. Off to the library for my tri-weekly fill-up of wonderful unread books. Have a good one on mustangs to renew. May get some movies on DVD there too, Tuesday being half-price day. ----- 05/04/05 It is odd, yet typical, that the board (hardwood no doubt) is against morale, as if anyone is going to affect that it will be them, but downward of course. A customer brought her little dog into the bookstore one time that was so small it could probably fit into a large coffee mug, so a "board" wouldn't even know it was there. My lady could maybe wear one of the cockatiels as a brooch, but alas, they love to eat paper, so she'd have to get employment in a confetti factory. --- Yes, there is always catch-up to do after a journey, and perhaps your "times 6" formula is about right. Yet I remember a rancher I once knew who said he planned a week's vacation, worried about the fate of his ranch beforehand and during the week in a boat, but when he got back, he had not been missed. He didn't know how he felt about that. Speaking of that name, the reference in the last email was to the Michigan one, as I hope is clear from the context. I included some email 'twixt cousin and me to show how hard it is to pry information from him. At the time of that email (February, 2005) his wife was ill, apparently, and got over it soon after. As for sister, actually she has been under the weather for a week or so and would probably like to hear from you and your mother. It is a flu sort of thing, and she was concerned I would get it from her, but I have remained flu-free so far. Say hi to all the Denverites from us when you see them. Haven't heard anything of them for a while, but assume all is fine in the mile-high city. Your invitation is most welcome. Perhaps we can add to the summer "insanity", but don't know now if we can come. We'll conjure on it and see... I certainly think about your part of the world and imagine the changes of the seasons there. For the last few weeks, our Spring has been cool and overcast. I have been out getting photos a few times when the sun decided to peek through. Did get some horse shots one day. Still, the flowers and flowering trees are going mad with Spring -- reddish dogwood blossoms, white pear, and, in front of the library, beautiful Japanese cherry trees covered in rich reds. A confused Mallard mom has been scouting the library grounds for a nesting site. ----- 05/05/05 As you say, life is fun: there are an infinity of interesting things to be discovered. I have found a few art sites, and one site with many links, and have only begun to mine those. Looking with an eye tuned to "would it make a good puzzle" is teaching me to look with a fresh eye, and that makes the effort even more rewarding. Sometimes the music is very appropriate, as when I used "Come All Ye Fair And Tender Maidens" for a painting of a bull elk in rutting season, but other times I choose the music for simple listenability. Your problem with reading is one I've had many times. When you finish with a really good book, it is a letdown to search for another book that is as good. The Reader's Dilemma. On the other hand, as you found, a book will surprise with its relevance to one's life or its interesting twist on something never thought of. Again, as with hunting for images, it is following the path that gives the pleasure of surprise and discovery. At the moment, among other books, I am reading a "coffee-table" book on mustangs that surprised me with its high quality of writing and its sympathy for the troubled animals. Have not seen much of the sun lately, in fact not for several weeks. The Spring flowers are out, and the birds are nesting, but things could be brighter... P.S. Interesting the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker has shown up again after being missing for 60 years. Let's see if we can avoid screwing up the bird this time... --- For her special thanks, I return a special "you're welcome, glad you like it". As to the name of the puzzle software, ordering it, etc. notice what comes up when you work a puzzle. P.S. Unauthorized use of this email is encouraged. It is every bit as secure as any activity directed by governments, which is to say, it won't hurt to look over your shoulder once in a while. As the owls say, have a mice day. ----- 05/09/05 Have a look at the Natural History Highlight, the scanning electron microscopy section. I was interested to see the Smithsonian has got some new toys: an "environmental scanning electron microscope" (ESEM) that allows electron microscopy in a near normal environment instead of a vacuum, and a light microscope that uses digital software to record an image in planes of sharpness (building up a sharper 3-D image than light microscopes can normally do). Were I to win the lottery, these two gizmos would be among my early purchases. A couple of technicians too. It would seem your idea of editing his writing would be to the good for you and for his work. There would be nothing to prevent you from offering the original text for those who like wandering in journals, but also have a more coherent version that makes use of collapsed time and a condensation that comes from understanding and sympathy. By the nature of a person's integrity, there are major and minor themes that recur and deepen as the writings go on. Your sense of being in touch with his spirit will guide you. Also, you would be reacting to the words and that will come through too -- sort of a collaboration. The fact that some people are advanced in some ways, but "retarded" in others is interesting to me. I don't use the left-brain/right-brain description as I have never thought it valid, and I have seen some writings that say it is no longer considered a true understanding of the way the brain works. But as a shorthand way of talking about what are seen as dichotomies, I imagine the terms will live on. However, there are many abilities that the brain uses to try to come to terms with existence, and it is obvious that individuals vary radically in the quality of these abilities. There is much to learn about the timing of the development of these abilities, and about the importance of exercising the abilities at the right time in the developing person. Yet I have thought many times that when a person lives a more "natural" life, these things happen when they are needed. That is, if a person has a vast range of experiences and is allowed to play and investigate, then the lessons will be learned in the ordinary course of events. It would of course help if the child had access to sympathetic older persons who could guide and reward, then even more development could take place. Having said all that, I'll mention a lifelong puzzle I've had about human life: we put so much emphasis on the developing child and the importance of learning, accomplishment, and the joys of curiosity, but we largely forget about these things in the older person. How many millions, or billions, of people have been steadily encouraged during youth to live the good life , then abandoned to soul-destroying employment and utterly superficial popular culture the rest of their days? Yes, I know the ready answer, that adults can take care of themselves, but adults, being social by nature, could benefit from a little concern over the quality of life and mind. Maybe we should remember to teach children to be tough enough to proceed along their life's path even in the face of indifference and mendacity. "I got the idea of creating a curriculum of jigsaw puzzles to go with reading." This sounds like a possibility worth investigating, for sure. Let me know how this develops. I suggested a while back to my lady that as part of making foreign students feel at home, they might like puzzles featuring images from their native land, etc. When she discussed this at her office,that evolved to an idea to offer puzzles to the children of these foreign students, especially the boys who are not as sociable as the girls and who are often bored at gatherings. This may well come to pass, and I will be doing the puzzles from images they suggest. Hmm, maybe a small book could be a "prize" for finishing the puzzle... You comment on goslings amid the traffic, and such things are world-wide. I remember seeing a picture of a Tokyo traffic stream halted twice a day while mom duck took her young ones from the fountain where they were hatched to the nearby canal and back. I read that the federal treasury building had a mallard nest near its entrance and important people were tip-toeing around her. Here at home, the librarians were kerfuffled by the Mallard hen who seemed to be scouting out a nesting site in the library's bushes, about three blocks and a big drop to the nearest water. And we humans slaughter whole environments, but risk safety to save a duck -- strange! I like both the swan image and the sheep one in your recent puzzles. Donkeys too are good to help protect sheep, they are sensible and woe to the dog that messes with the donkey's sheep. Have heard that llamas also will fight predators and protect sheep. The swan picture reminds me of a newspaper clipping we had posted for several years. It showed a picture of the "Swan Father" of a German urban park who cared for the swans. Once a year he had to collect them all and move them to a protected area, so the picture showed maybe 20 tied swans resting in a boat with heads indignantly raised to maximum height. Not something one sees too often. ----- 05/12/05 I have been enjoying two good books recently, just my sort of books. They are by David Kline who is a literary Amishman whose farm is in northern Ohio, and the subject is the natural world as seen from an Amish farm. If I could talk to him, I'd say you have written well of the natural world, now write about your own animals, especially the horses that plow your ground. He sometimes talks about those who want farmers to "do better" by adopting modern farming techniques, but those techniques destroy the real world, and alienate man from nature. Their only advantage is that shining star of modernity -- the fast buck -- and to heck with the consequences. Yes, finally Spring has settled in to stay. I did get out some to get pre-leaf images, but it will take a long time to get to those images for "darkroom work". I have been so involved with puzzles, I have neglected some of my other projects, such as the Robert Burns translations. I have kept going with the notes and journal, but again this month I am far behind in transcribing those notes to the journal for printing. Ah well, if our reach does not exceed our grasp, what's a retirement for? ----- 05/17/05 Yes, microscope images were nice -- sharp and informative. Electron microscopes have always been so superior to light ones, but of course it means metal-coating subjects and putting them in a vacuum, not so good for living things. It looks like that is changing, at last. Fast as modern times are, I often wonder what the delay is in improving some things. I agree on the value of a microscope. I have wanted one for years. I remember irritating an amateur astronomer by mentioning the far greater fascination of the microscopic to the rather boring views of the sky, e.g. the stars always appear as points of light no matter what power one uses, and to get great images one must invest in major photographing equipment, etc. He was not amused, but really, he was simply more impressed with the large than the small, and how wise is that? Your mention of a couple in a beautiful park somehow making a living there awakens an old frustration of mine. How often I have wanted to do that. But it is not at all easy, and only a blessed few get to do it. And those blessed few have to work pretty hard in most cases. Luck helps too. Still, they are a beacon for the aspirations of the rest of us who care less for normal society and security, and more for delight and contentment. Watched a DVD movie directed by Richard Attenborough on the early conservation writer Grey Owl. He was English, but passed himself off as an Indian. "You become what you dream, and you have dreamed well", said the old Indian to him in the film. The really delightful part of the DVD was the 1930's footage of Grey Owl and his pet beavers. If you can believe this, the beavers had constructed a lodge at the side of his lakeside cabin and had moved a large heap of mud into the cabin itself, complete with entrance! Am still barreling along doing puzzles, but am also drawn back into programming again -- this cycle has been going on for years. Programming is a strange and frustrating pleasure, can't quite explain its fascination, but fascinating it is. It is always "how can I get this wretched machine to do what I want it to?" As I used to say to my students, the computer is a different machine with every program that is run: a kind of universal machine. Another feature of programming is the training it gives in planning and logical execution. It is clear, coherent, integral or it doesn't work. Haven't read Road Angels, but I have an author to recommend: David Kline. He is Amish and lives on his family farm in Ohio. His books are Great Possessions and Scratching The Woodchuck. His style is smooth as butter and all his writings are made of short chapters focusing on the natural world. I have spent many a fine hour dipping into the kindly perceptions of Mr. Kline. Goober peas are peanuts. I looked on the Web and found this old Confederate song: Sitting by the roadside--- My lady has been recuperating from what seems to be a bad cold. Odd how few people realize what a nasty little disease a real cold is! It can knock you out of action and treat you to a panoply of miseries. Perhaps that is what you had. Otherwise, the universe is apparently unfolding as it should, or at least as it pleases itself to do. I continue to mine the wonderful world of retirement for every succulent bit of lassitude it holds. I may write a book: Power Nothingness, or maybe So You Want To Be A Ne'er-do-well! Or maybe Be Bemused For Fun and (Doubtful) Profit. Or How To Be Really Irritating To Those Poor B*st*rds Who Still Have To Work. Or Freedom Through Sloth, maybe? Duck-Billed Platitudes For The Rudderless Masses? Oh, good thing I have a moral compass, rusty as it is... ----- 05/18/05 Here is the other squirrel puzzle I meant to send yesterday (somehow them raccoons snuck in). As to jigsaw puzzles driving one to drink: drink what? Tea, coffee, lemonade? Anything heavierwould result in: "an' awl 'em li'l puddle peazuz ud blur 'n skittle about like beetles at the Bug Ball". We are more or less back on track healthwise for the moment, until the next round of viruses from the oriental disease generator. They say it is the intimate link in the East of duck, pig, and man (ducks herded to the rice fields for fertilizer and bug/weed control, pigs for fertilizer and meat, man to farm rice and to orchestrate generally) that forms a handy virus adaptation path from bird to man. It is one of several environmental time bombs to watch nervously over one's shoulder. Below are some of my ruminations on the anti-evolution efforts of some Christians. Read it if you are interested. === I see the anti-evolution types have learned well the lessons of the American Left and are proceeding with steady pressure against the teachings of life science. I wonder if this is not traceable, not to respect for Christian doctrine regarding the physical world, but to a deep desire for man to be Special to God. Is this ego on a broad social level? Maybe God is not all that interested in us, except for an occasional dip into morbid curiosity.=== ----- 05/20/05 As to:"why I keep having to stop and move my mouse to get the marker" sorry, I can't quite understand the problem, so can't suggest a fix. Kindly rephrase it and I will respond. However, in general, the window must "have the focus" in order to respond. Sometimes one must click in the window somewhere to give it the focus. The "marker" is called the mouse cursor. We are in complete agreement on the rapid tiresomeness of the program's own music, and yes, we did well to get some better stuff. I have a feeling there is a LOT of music out there for us to play with. The MIDI site says they are working on a new protocol that will allow for better music and even voice eventually -- interesting. But the main strength of MIDI is its small file size. It does not record music, it describes it. There is a comparison one can make with an ordinary text file. It is small compared with a recording of the same words, but some programs can "read" the file in a human voice (more or less). I have long advocated the creation of sophisticated programs that could do such reading with considerable human intonation and feeling. That way any text novel, say, becomes an audio book and no one would have to pay a human reader. Plus storage of the work is simple because it is small. (One could get even a large novel on an ordinary floppy disk.) Over time, such a program could be improved until in the end only the finest poetry would elude the abilities of the program. Also there could be different voices for the different characters. By the way, any comment of mine to the contrary, if you feel in touch with things beyond the ordinary in your dealing with computers, it is fine with me. I am far from assuming a final understanding of this great mysterious universe. Those who pay a lot of attention to quantum mechanics say there are things there that contradict some of our most deeply held assumptions. It may take a long time for us to absorb all the implications of what we have observed in the quantum world. A potent example is the observation that certain paired particles remain in "tune" and change simultaneously without regard for the distance between them. If so, then bye bye cause-and-effect! Yes, I too am depressed whenever a Big Company sort of beast comes anywhere near me. It is too much like being a happy member of the coral reef set and along comes the shadow of a shark. ----- 05/22/05 Am fighting off some bug from among the witch's brew of same in the air. So far I am holding my own and not getting the super-sore throat (though some) or the headaches that my lady said were featured in her bout. I have strongly protested to the various cells and cell-associations of my corpus that I wish no [long list of ailments here]. So far, (kof] so good. So far, the Spring has been quite acceptable and I commend it on a job well started. --- However, as of this moment, I think the cold/flu beast that I have fended off lo these many days, has taken hold maybe. I feel like droppings with the scats stomped out. As my lady can attest, the problem isn't just feeling lousy, it is the inability to read or concentrate that would otherwise ameliorate the misery. So, if a co-worker goes ashew, leave immediately for a distant peopleless environs. Or cover them with a drop-cloth. Whatever is sensitive, but effective. ----- 05/24/05 It is interesting that Jigsaws Galore can handle MP3 files, it sounds fine. However, remember that MIDI files are small ones and don't fatten up the final puzzle much. Your puzzle came in at 3.23 Mb, about six times larger than a typical jigsaw puzzle. I don't know what the sunset image was in file size, but a three-minute song in MP3 is going to be at least three Mb. It is quite possible that the ISPs of some recipients you would want to send puzzles to would not be able to handle this size of file. In any case, it is too big because the download time would exhaust the patience of many typical non-broadband email users. Of course, for puzzles on CD, it would be fine; for that medium size is not much of an object of concern. A person sent me a giant file one time that completely choked my email such that I could receive nothing until a technician manually deleted it from the server. What you went through with the photo is an example of one of the best ways to learn: having a goal, and stubbornly pursuing it to get the result you want. There is a pursed-lip satisfaction about it that is great for confidence. Have fun tidying up. I recommend a small bulldozer for those hard to reach corners. ----- 05/29/05 Yes, the cold/flu/whatever has done its wretched best to lay me low, and I have spent some time among the miseries, especially at night when sleep is driven away by bronchial fun and games. The bronchitis shows signs of hanging on, which is the normal pattern for me. I may have to give a stern lecture to my innards as to this lamentable tendency. As to Robert Burns, yes, have a look at my website and check out the Literature link for Burns. It will take a long time, what with other distractions, to finish the complete "translation", but there is enough now to see how it will go. I have been learning about Scots dialect, and use a simple computer program to aid in the translation, though there is personal attention to each line as well. People rarely have interesting things to say about children, though the children may do miracles on a daily basis. As with nature itself, there is a tendency to see the young through a distorted lens so the real scalp-tingling mysteries are hidden. Well, if so, it is what we humans seem to specialize in doing: project our hopes, dreams, and fond notions on the world and miss the world thereby. As you say, the Spring is cool, overcast, sometimes wet (though there was a dryish spell earlier). Basically it is April transferred to May. There were a couple of perfect days, but I wasn't able to take advantage of them. I wonder if in the history of eccentricity, there has ever been a person who simply traveled around seeking perfect days and lolling in them? I might be willing to take the job if the pay were decent. A book out of that: My Ten Thousand Perfect Days or While You Were Slaving Away, I Was Afield In Paradise, Ha Ha. Speaking of book titles, glad you enjoyed my paragraph of same. I read recently of a man who, at maybe 45, had a hundred non-fiction book titles to his credit. I couldn't help wondering about the value of these, it seems too many for any to be very good. On the other hand, if my standards were lower, I might have a few titles to my own credit by now, so I guess he is brighter than me. Ah, well.... Meanwhile am reveling in retirement as usual. Am sloughing off all aspirations and expectations daily and may eventually be a being of pure existence free of all bindings. Just think of it: no job. No necessity. No must. Yet this is not for sissies, any more than aging is. We seem to think of ourselves as horses that must be haltered and driven to be of worth. Wonderful as the wild mustangs of the West are to some of us, there are others who just don't get it. What good? they ask. But life and freedom and joy are goods in themselves -- they need no other justification. We are not here to serve, but to live fully. We have no masters, and make poor masters of ourselves when we act not out of joy, but duty. We seek meaning, as if it can be bestowed upon us by others, or a higher power, but the truth is, we create meaning. It is not the cause of our acting, but the result of it. It does not drive us, we drive it. Of all lessons, this seems to be the hardest to learn. --- Have been climbing out from under a cold this last week and am now catching up on some things left undone. Yes, I have high-speed Internet access. Bottom line: file size is always an issue in sending email. For CDs, no problem. You could have many puzzles with MP3 files in them for music and give them away to anyone you want. If the recipient runs the files from the CD, then there is no storage problem for them, the files remain on the CD, and everyone is happy. As for MP3 files, I am not super-knowledgeable about the current state of song availability on the Internet. It does seem true, though, that MIDI is the way to go for jigsaw puzzles because of the small file size, even with all the limitations as to quality, lack of voice, etc. A thing to remember: anyone can play any music CD on the computer as they work. So, if a person wants to listen to the Beatles, or the London Symphony Orchestra, or punk rock by "Kill 'Em 'N Eat 'Em" (a famous group that I just made up) while doing a jigsaw puzzle, they can. The music we add is sort of a courtesy to be enjoyed or ignored as the user wishes. One friend uses audio books as she does puzzles -- she rarely listens to the MIDI file. Most of this you already know, as I see by your comments. So, if you like it and want to do it, want to experiment with MP3, put in whole symphonies in MIDI, whatever, as you say no harm done and its all learning and having fun. I'm just adding my thoughts on file size to the mix. "But to explore, exhilarates me. " This is the essence of learning on the computer. Do that and you won't have any trouble you can't handle. Figure it this way: it isn't "Oh darn, I can't do it" but "How can I get this pile of electronic junk to do what I want." Use the Help feature in most programs. Right-click on things to see options. Scan menus to see the possibilities. Learn to search for files. Try, try, try again. I really worked to get my students to see that gritty effort and persistence, not diffidence, was the key to using computers. People have too often formed bad habits of short attention span, no patience, no resolve. They are the victims of the Entertainment Age, the passive boob-tube crew fit to gobble potato chips and glitzy shows, but not fit to arrange things to work the way they want and need. Nearly any person from, say, 1850 or 1900 would learn computers faster than most moderns because those people would be used to making things happen, not passively waiting for things to happen. Curiosity with a mission. I like it. Also, people forget that anyone can be an explorer. There are metaphorical mountains everywhere to climb. All it takes is a sense of wonder, of curiosity, and a Hillary-feeling that "because it's there" it is to be investigated. As always, there is a goal, but it is the journey that is the important thing, the thing that makes memories and achievements. Newspapers, hmm, I'm surprised some enterprising group hasn't offered to take them away for sale. Is paper worth nothing now? For myself, I gave up newspapers years ago and do not miss them except to line the bottom of the bird cages. All the news I want is on the Web, and usually I ignore that, except for science news and, occasionally,tech news. ----- 05/31/05 Now that your situation and location have altered and you have perhaps somewhat settled in and adapted to it, time, I guess, to pick up the correspondence. I had the sense you were in the midst of chaos there for awhile. I have received your missives and cards and I thank you for them. They are sort of flashes of you arcing by. Chez us, we flourish, more or less. I continue to squeeze the fruit of retirement and lack only a patio overlooking the blue Pacific to be more content. A lifelong fantasy, actually, of having patios or decks, with appropriate appurtenances, in ten or a dozen climes continues to feed my imagination. Such a thing wouldn't be hard to attain for a land-and-money-oriented person, but I suspect they wouldn't get the pleasure from it that I would. Such is the irritating fairness of reality. My lady continues to work, and has become a connoisseur of irritants amid the lifeforms she deals with. Allergy to people is surely an undiscovered moneymaker for the medical types. Save us from people-people, I think, they are sociopaths with grafted on smiley-faces. Anyway, 30 months could do it for her. Fortunately money has never been a big deal with us. Personally, all I ask for is a rural scene with grassy pond, but next to a good library, hardware store, and bake shop, preferably all-in-one. A rather vicious cold/flu bug passed this way and left us wan as wraiths, but these things usually don't actually kill one, which is a feature, not a bug. I suppose in their viral wisdom, they wish to preserve their breeding grounds for the next wave. I have continued to read a great deal, though less than in former months. For a while I was zipping through library books at a great rate, but was less discriminating, so eventually I got tired of second-rate writing that was keeping me from the better things I own. Now I am restoring a balance, insisting on a certain percentage of high-quality writing. I suppose I should congratulate you on your new position, though as I'm sure you know, there is ambivalence in me about it. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, as we have heard from Ecclesiastes. I can't help thinking there is a time of wisdom, as well as of action. And that effort calls forth from our deepest resources. To wait until the mind and body grow infirm is to wait too long. But, as Abe Lincoln's daddy used to say, "Everybody has to skin his own skunk". Interesting about the religious types renewing the anti-evolution fight, and they have learned well from the liberals, their new techniques of focusing lawyers and smooth talkers to weak points in the society is old stuff to the left. Surely nothing is so irritating to manipulators as seeing the opposition learn from them their best tricks. Still, it seems it is not a respect for truth that is behind the anti-science efforts that have returned from the vaults of history, but a desperate grasping at significance for people. They see that in modern culture, there is a loss of respect and purpose to life. We live but to consume, and the consumerist set of values is a fearsome enemy to religion. It is a direct contradiction to the reason that religion exists. The religious counter-movement to this vapidity seeks to identify the enemy and destroy it. Yet just as an allergy is a misplaced immune reaction, the war on science is both irrelevant and dangerous. The real enemy is bad character and bad values: greed, lust for things, lack of respect, being a sheep of commercial and political propaganda. A morally whole person has no need to attack science or to engage in popular culture and consumerism. The truth never corrupted anyone's morality. I have been bummed recently by accounts of the slaughter of birds in two different parts of the country due to supposed depredations upon the happiness and profit-line of people. That the cause has been the actions of man is not taken into account. How primitive we still are, we pathetic lords of earth. The whole world is a sort of ship of fools with the rest of life hostage to the ongoing soap opera of man. There are many signs of hope, and many good people, but the sheer weight of humanity and the collective stupidity of same, is a depressing thing to contemplate. More than twice as many of us now as when we were young, but the space is the same. So, the next time some bozo tells you there's endless land left for the burgeoning generations, you can give some facts to him or her. It is a good guess we are nearing a level of one person per acre of livable ground the world over. And of course, that acre must do for all human purposes: Kastles of Krap, parking lots, roads, buildings, farmland, forest, parkland, industry, etc., etc. Thank goodness, homo termitians loves to coagulate in cities, except for the counter-desire to live in a nice semi-rural enclave separate from the furious urban scene. Below I've copied the lyrics to Dylan's great and not much known song, Black Diamond Bay. I have often wondered about the odd fact we moderns tend to read very little poetry, and think it is not part of life, but all song lyrics are a form of poetry, and we listen to songs a lot, but ignore the "poetry" in the poetry. Black Diamond Bay – Bob Dylan Ah, you did read it -- good! ----- 06/12/05 I sympathize with you very much regarding the noise to be inflicted upon you by those who think that life without noise is hardly life at all. In the older days, people would have a Sunday music offering in the local park, and if they wanted to hear the music, they went there. Now the noise promoters feel so justified in "sharing" that they invade your local space, your house, and eventually it will be against the law not to listen to their infernal yowling probably. I finally got a pair of noise-canceling earphones and will eventually get an iPod style player so that when I shop, I can at least listen to my choice of music. Music is, to a degree, an externalization of emotion and body rhythms, it can create the illusion of a shared ambience -- an emotional meaning-space for crowds of people. It is very very powerful stuff. If the manager/controller types become as sophisticated as the commercial types in the use of music, we will be further along toward termitedom. As a last comment on music, try this fantasy: grab the chief noise-promoter, tie him/her up, put the person in a box, and play at high volume some sort of music that person would not like. Maybe classical music, maybe country, or polka -- whatever they writhe under. Tell the person you just want to share this great music with them for a few days. Then let the person go. Maybe they would "get it", that being forced to listen to others' music is not fun, it is torture. Some of what the parade people choose as appropriate is so loathsome that I want to run away and get over my embarrassment for them, the yahoos. I especially remember sweet little girl dancers trying to follow the torrid beat of some sexy modern tune. What are the mothers thinking that they would want this? Yes, they would say it is "cute". Holy smoke. As to AC and sweltering: the big wet hen of Gulf weather has moved in to stay. We are quite miserable. My lady and I strongly prefer cool and dry weather -- this is the opposite of that, and reported to not be changing anytime soon. We have become mere puddles of people, oozing from fan to fan and trying not to soak into the carpet. Only by remaining motionless and having two or three fans playing about our corpi are we able to stay conscious enough to read or work at the computer. Boo. And hoo. --- These are by the great Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman. The penguin image I found to be almost a religious experience as I looked at it. He captures the colors and strange shapes of the animals, along with the young that these colors and shapes somehow lead to, nature again being shown to be more mysterious and deep than we have any idea of. The Cardinal and Apples are typical of later Bateman works where he tries to tell the truth about the world of birds, without that gloss of sentimentality that is so much less in impact than the simple truth. The artist is a true artist. The heat is miserable. On the other hand, the corn and other crops are probably as happy as plants can be. Soon lianas and tree orchids will fill the woods, along with crocodiles, malaria, and anacondas. Perhaps heat-loving primates will fill our temples as they do in parts of India. (Episcopalian monkeys?) Whoopee. ----- 06/15/05 I am passing this along in the spirit of your letters with articles on the issues of the day. This is from the New Yorker and seems to be a good summary of the Intelligent Design movement and its aims. Its general take is not far from my own conclusions: that it is not science that is the enemy of faith, but old-fashioned sins of arrogance and trash values. However, there is some sense in which the worried religious are right. The loss of moral authority has paralleled the advance of understanding and it has given many people an excuse for discarding morals. There is an irony here: men knew little when they accepted a moral teaching, and now they are sophomores in the university of life, all they want to do is party. Don't they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? Well, if God must make way for knowledge, and I'm not clear on why He must (though I don't personally care), then I guess assuming we have the time we'll just have to, er, evolve a higher moral level :-) ----- 06/20/05 Yes the heat was miserable. I disapprove of any kind of discomfort, and that mug-wave achieved a minus-7 on my personal scale of misery. However, I fought back by not moving at all for days which played heck with my hobbies of eating and living. Glad you have air conditioners. As you say, they are wretched things -- noisy, cumbersome, and are warts on the side of one's domicile. On the other hand, they preserve one like lettuce in the fridge. I too like fresh air and would have to be really desperate to install the things. The heat pump concept is better, but doesn't solve the problem of fresh air. Maybe the houses made of hay bales or adobe are better for general humanity and naturalness. ----- 06/22/05 Like the natural world, or like art sometimes, these puzzles can "sneak up and surprise" one into a higher level of mind. Too bad there are so few of the Spanish lynx left; I hope they make it through the years to come. ---- |
