Our world, that is the part of the world that is outside nature that we have created, is a human construction (there is a great discussion of this in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). In fact all this stuff once started out in someone's brain, somewhere down in between the folds of that fleshy grayish tofu like consistency brain; yes, all that we have come to know and appreciate. This computer I am typing on, typing itself, the words I am typing, the many other complex technologies that are being implemented to make all of this possible once started out in someone's brain. How is that things completely intangible (thoughts) (but are they really?) make it into the outside world?
How absolutely amazing is it that we can give form to what can be reduced to electrical transfer between cells out to a world? I tend toward the more romantic view of reality (but in a classical way), mystical (one might say) and I like that.
I hate posts like this. They go no where and feel really self absorbed and pointless. But that is just self-deprecating isn't it? Or maybe it is the truth. More on that tomorrow. (What am I talking about?)
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Here is a story I wrote. It has no plot, no moral, and no dominate themes. It is and that is all. I would think it to be much like life, not everything has a meaning. Some things just are. As one great thinker once put it we would never ask the meaning of a lady bug, it just is. So it is with this "story." And maybe this is an assault on the whole process and craft of writing (some previous readers would think so); so be it.
Page 273
"Shut up, just shut up," John said clinching the steering wheel. I turned, looking out of my window, watching the trees slow down.
"You're walking," I said calmly.
"No, I am walking. I am tired of setting in this car anyway," Eli chimed in.
I got out of the car, shut the door, turned and walked away towards the gas station that I hoped was there.
Whoa there is a raven. I wonder if I am going to die. Nevermore. I really like Poe such suspense. Thinking of that, I wonder if John brought a gun. Well of course he did. I mean why would he not, he probably went and bought one at the ammo store before we left, idiot. If I was going to die on this little foray it would probably be because of that gun... that he probably has. I wonder what is the best way to hold ones thumb out in order to catch a ride. Hold it out, with my arm sightly limp, so that it seems that I don't care, and move it back and forth slowly. I bet there is... Some pages from a book. That would be funny if it were pages from the Bible, from Job. That would be an omen. I bet there is a gas station right around this corner... The grass is really dead here and these pages are... only from a romance novel. O well no omen today. I think I will drop these pages back to the ground for some poor soul to be deceived by. Maybe we will be fortunate enough that... O Here comes the chance to try my hitching technique now. Thumb out, arm slightly limp, and slowly moving back and forth. He is not slowing down... come on, you know you want to pick me up... ah forget it.
Turning and facing the oncoming truck and waving my hands I yelled, "Hey... Hey... I need a ride!"
That was lame why did I say that. Should have stayed with the thumb, probably would have stopped if I had stayed with that. I thought people from the south were supposed to be polite or something. Geez it is getting hot, I wonder how long I have been walking, it seems like it has been an hour. Almost out of the corner, there has got to be a gas station up here, up yonder. Up yonder? were did that come from. This is the south and the road has a lot of words in it. I am ill this heat is really getting to... I think I am ADD or ADHD, DHDA or something. Well probably one of those... aaaaannnnnnndddd there, is. All right, nothing, no gas station this is encouraging. Is that a car? Ok use the thumb technique as soon as the car rounds the corner stick it out there. That car looks a lot like the BMW. I think... yeah it is?
Rolling the passenger window down he said, "You need a ride," with a smirk on his face.
"John where did you get the gas at," I asked opening the door and getting in the car.
"Well did you see that old pick up truck."
"Yeah he didn't stop," I said.
"Well the old man that was driving it, stopped and gave us some gas," John said grabbing the knob on the radio, "and I told him that you where up ahead and that there was no need for him to stop and pick you up."
"He said the next gas station is only a few miles ahead," Eli said while reaching for the tuning knob on the radio.
"So we will stop there," John said slapping Eli's hand away.
"Would you two stop that, I am going to choose the station," I said reaching for the knob.
Page 273
"Shut up, just shut up," John said clinching the steering wheel. I turned, looking out of my window, watching the trees slow down.
"You're walking," I said calmly.
"No, I am walking. I am tired of setting in this car anyway," Eli chimed in.
I got out of the car, shut the door, turned and walked away towards the gas station that I hoped was there.
Whoa there is a raven. I wonder if I am going to die. Nevermore. I really like Poe such suspense. Thinking of that, I wonder if John brought a gun. Well of course he did. I mean why would he not, he probably went and bought one at the ammo store before we left, idiot. If I was going to die on this little foray it would probably be because of that gun... that he probably has. I wonder what is the best way to hold ones thumb out in order to catch a ride. Hold it out, with my arm sightly limp, so that it seems that I don't care, and move it back and forth slowly. I bet there is... Some pages from a book. That would be funny if it were pages from the Bible, from Job. That would be an omen. I bet there is a gas station right around this corner... The grass is really dead here and these pages are... only from a romance novel. O well no omen today. I think I will drop these pages back to the ground for some poor soul to be deceived by. Maybe we will be fortunate enough that... O Here comes the chance to try my hitching technique now. Thumb out, arm slightly limp, and slowly moving back and forth. He is not slowing down... come on, you know you want to pick me up... ah forget it.
Turning and facing the oncoming truck and waving my hands I yelled, "Hey... Hey... I need a ride!"
That was lame why did I say that. Should have stayed with the thumb, probably would have stopped if I had stayed with that. I thought people from the south were supposed to be polite or something. Geez it is getting hot, I wonder how long I have been walking, it seems like it has been an hour. Almost out of the corner, there has got to be a gas station up here, up yonder. Up yonder? were did that come from. This is the south and the road has a lot of words in it. I am ill this heat is really getting to... I think I am ADD or ADHD, DHDA or something. Well probably one of those... aaaaannnnnnndddd there, is. All right, nothing, no gas station this is encouraging. Is that a car? Ok use the thumb technique as soon as the car rounds the corner stick it out there. That car looks a lot like the BMW. I think... yeah it is?
Rolling the passenger window down he said, "You need a ride," with a smirk on his face.
"John where did you get the gas at," I asked opening the door and getting in the car.
"Well did you see that old pick up truck."
"Yeah he didn't stop," I said.
"Well the old man that was driving it, stopped and gave us some gas," John said grabbing the knob on the radio, "and I told him that you where up ahead and that there was no need for him to stop and pick you up."
"He said the next gas station is only a few miles ahead," Eli said while reaching for the tuning knob on the radio.
"So we will stop there," John said slapping Eli's hand away.
"Would you two stop that, I am going to choose the station," I said reaching for the knob.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
A Field in Winter
Okay before you read this go here. This is the band Midlake, Midlake this is, well you know, what's your name again... Now I want you to click on the song "Head Home." I find this song very appropriate for this post. Listen and read...
I made this from a landscape I found a few miles from my parents apartment, which is close to High Fill a small town in Northwest Arkansas. The land in this part of Arkansas sets above sea level around 1900 feet. It's barren this time of year, the wind blows and the sun sometimes shines, as it is here. This landscape sets me in a certain psychological mood. I think of the past and my life and of what it would have been like to live with the land, not sheltered from it and having to rely directly on it for food. But this is not the world that I live in. I live in a world that seems, at least relatively to the past, to be over saturated with direction instead of a lack thereof. I think it must have been different in the past.
A few days ago my Father, brother and I were traveling in the mountains close to here. My father took me to a town called War Eagle. It is really just a Mill on the War Eagle River with a few houses around it. A man, Sylvanus Blackburn, traveled to War Eagle from Eastern Tennessee in 1832. He came with an ox driven wagon. Leaving his wife behind it would be a year before she would see or hear from him again. I imagined while I stood there looking at that mill what that must have been like that morning he pulled out. Catherine cried, Sylvanus didn't look back. He traveled for weeks without seeing a single soul. When night fell it was dark and the only light was that of the fire that he built. That fire at night when he stopped wherever he was in what must have seemed like an endless wilderness only threw light 30 or 40 feet and then there was the darkness ever eager to collapse on that space at the moment the fire quit burning. In 1832 Sylvanus didn't have a flashlight to pierce the night. Light, something that we are so used to was a luxury. In the deep wilderness in the night its not quite but the night makes it seem so. Day and night passing, the sun coming up and going down over what looked like the same trees everyday for months, I wonder what his ox's name was and what they talked about. I mean what Sylvanus said to the ox, who else would you talk to? I imagine he was a religious man as well. Even if he wasn't he must have talked to God out there, probably if anything about where to go. He didn't have gps, google earth, mapquest, a cell phone, email, letters, telegraph, or another person. No all Sylvanus had was thought, himself, an ox, and God. All he could leave his wife with was a word and when he left all he could have told his wife is, "I'll come back," with his thick southern draw. He didn't know, he really didn't know where he was going, much less how long it would take. All he had was hearsay. What he had heard from someone who's son-in-law's cousin was a surveyor for the Louisiana purchase and had seen an area in the newly ratified state of Arkansas that looked nice. I don't think that he ever questioned himself though, or maybe he did. Maybe there were times in the cold night by the fire with William, what I imagine he called his ox, when he thought why did I do this? "Why did I leave Cathrine alone?" I have this image of him night after night after night sitting at that fire a little farther along asking himself this question and verbalizing it toward William. He fought all the way and he found this piece of land and built this little homestead and a year later he made it back home to take his wife to their new place.
In the Mill there on the river they had a picture of Sylvanus and Catherine in their old age. You know after they had built the mill and it had been washed away a few years later when the river flooded. They rebuilt it and then they had to leave because the confederate army took it over. and then after they finally returned to live out their remaining days with their adult children they found it burnt to the ground by the army that used it so the north couldn't. Their eyes told a story of a long and hard life. The eyes, well maybe it is more what surrounds the eyes then the eyes themselves, the expressions. But it is the eyes too, how dark or white or bloodshot they are, they say something of the life a person has lead. So I stood there looking into their eyes and they into mine. Looking over all those years, over 160 of them through that photograph taken in their old age how telling me how hard a life they lead. In the truck driving away from that place on the backs of those mountains that I knew Sylvanus and Catherine had passed over all those years ago I sat and thought about their eyes and wondered at how differently they lived.
I made this from a landscape I found a few miles from my parents apartment, which is close to High Fill a small town in Northwest Arkansas. The land in this part of Arkansas sets above sea level around 1900 feet. It's barren this time of year, the wind blows and the sun sometimes shines, as it is here. This landscape sets me in a certain psychological mood. I think of the past and my life and of what it would have been like to live with the land, not sheltered from it and having to rely directly on it for food. But this is not the world that I live in. I live in a world that seems, at least relatively to the past, to be over saturated with direction instead of a lack thereof. I think it must have been different in the past.
A few days ago my Father, brother and I were traveling in the mountains close to here. My father took me to a town called War Eagle. It is really just a Mill on the War Eagle River with a few houses around it. A man, Sylvanus Blackburn, traveled to War Eagle from Eastern Tennessee in 1832. He came with an ox driven wagon. Leaving his wife behind it would be a year before she would see or hear from him again. I imagined while I stood there looking at that mill what that must have been like that morning he pulled out. Catherine cried, Sylvanus didn't look back. He traveled for weeks without seeing a single soul. When night fell it was dark and the only light was that of the fire that he built. That fire at night when he stopped wherever he was in what must have seemed like an endless wilderness only threw light 30 or 40 feet and then there was the darkness ever eager to collapse on that space at the moment the fire quit burning. In 1832 Sylvanus didn't have a flashlight to pierce the night. Light, something that we are so used to was a luxury. In the deep wilderness in the night its not quite but the night makes it seem so. Day and night passing, the sun coming up and going down over what looked like the same trees everyday for months, I wonder what his ox's name was and what they talked about. I mean what Sylvanus said to the ox, who else would you talk to? I imagine he was a religious man as well. Even if he wasn't he must have talked to God out there, probably if anything about where to go. He didn't have gps, google earth, mapquest, a cell phone, email, letters, telegraph, or another person. No all Sylvanus had was thought, himself, an ox, and God. All he could leave his wife with was a word and when he left all he could have told his wife is, "I'll come back," with his thick southern draw. He didn't know, he really didn't know where he was going, much less how long it would take. All he had was hearsay. What he had heard from someone who's son-in-law's cousin was a surveyor for the Louisiana purchase and had seen an area in the newly ratified state of Arkansas that looked nice. I don't think that he ever questioned himself though, or maybe he did. Maybe there were times in the cold night by the fire with William, what I imagine he called his ox, when he thought why did I do this? "Why did I leave Cathrine alone?" I have this image of him night after night after night sitting at that fire a little farther along asking himself this question and verbalizing it toward William. He fought all the way and he found this piece of land and built this little homestead and a year later he made it back home to take his wife to their new place.
In the Mill there on the river they had a picture of Sylvanus and Catherine in their old age. You know after they had built the mill and it had been washed away a few years later when the river flooded. They rebuilt it and then they had to leave because the confederate army took it over. and then after they finally returned to live out their remaining days with their adult children they found it burnt to the ground by the army that used it so the north couldn't. Their eyes told a story of a long and hard life. The eyes, well maybe it is more what surrounds the eyes then the eyes themselves, the expressions. But it is the eyes too, how dark or white or bloodshot they are, they say something of the life a person has lead. So I stood there looking into their eyes and they into mine. Looking over all those years, over 160 of them through that photograph taken in their old age how telling me how hard a life they lead. In the truck driving away from that place on the backs of those mountains that I knew Sylvanus and Catherine had passed over all those years ago I sat and thought about their eyes and wondered at how differently they lived.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Birds in Black and White
This is what I will be doing in less than 22 days now. Not turning into black and white but flying away on a plane, not my wings this time, to Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK. I'm counting the days.
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