City Market Fuel #440, 16400 South Townsend Avenue
12.245 gallons
$3.379/gallon
$41.38
now reading
Barkow, Jerome H., Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby. The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. [2nd. ed.], 1st issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, cop. 1992. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Cornaro, Luigi. Sure and Certain Methods of Attaining a Long and Healthful Life. London, UK: Daniel Midwinter, 1722.
Mattern, Shannon. “The Big Data of Ice, Rocks, Soils, and Sediments.” Places Journal, no. 2017 (November 7, 2017). https://placesjournal.org/article/the-big-data-of-ice-rocks-soils-and-sediments. (And several other extremely interesting articles and papers by Dr. Shannon on her site: https://wordsinspace.net/publications/)
watching Hells Kitchen
[ED: The far horizon is a portion of Grand Mesa at over 10,000 ft, and the side of the mesa facing the viewer, an area characterized by numerous landslides, is called “Hells Kitchen.” This is the view from my kitchen.]
on the West Fork of Surface Creek
ED: For new subscribers, selecting the red dot in the middle of the map will start the audio sample which can then be controlled using the play-bar and volume/mute (speaker) icon.
above Vela Reservoir
ED: For new subscribers, selecting the red dot in the middle of the map will start the audio sample which can then be controlled using the play-bar and volume/mute (speaker) icon.
Light on water
or …
on unnamed creek
ED: For new subscribers, selecting the red dot in the middle of the map will start the audio sample which can then be controlled using the play-bar and volume/mute (speaker) icon.
field work
watching Hells Kitchen
[ED: The far horizon is a portion of Grand Mesa at over 10,000 ft, and the side of the mesa facing the viewer, an area characterized by numerous landslides, is called “Hells Kitchen.” This is the view from my kitchen.]
Experimental Conviction
Long life is one of the greatest Blessings that we Mortals can enjoy; it being what all Men naturally desire and wish for. Nay, when Men are come to the longest Date, they desire yet to live a little longer. But, however, Health is that which sweetens all our other Enjoyments, without which the longest Life would be no more than a living Death, and render us burdensome to our selves, and troublesome to all about us.
But though Life be so desirous, and Health so great a Blessing, yet how much is both the one and the other undervalued, by the greatest Part of Mankind? Whatever they may think or say of the inestimableness of those precious Jewels, yet ’tis plain, by their Practice, that they put the Slight upon, and despise them both; and the most Man are hardly sensible of the worth of Health, ’till they come in good Earnest to be deprived of it.
How many Men do we daily see, by their Intemperance and Excess, to lay the Seeds of future Distempers, which either carry them off in the flower of their Age, which is the Case of most or else render their Old Age, if they do arrive to it, uneasy and uncomfortable? And though we see others daily drop into the Grave before us, and are very apt with Justice to ascribe the Loss of our Friends, to their living too fast, yet we cannot forbear treading in the same Steps, and following the same Courses, ’till at last, by a violent and unnatural Death, we are hurried off the Stage of Life after them.
What the Noble Cornaro observes of the Italians of his Time, may very well be applied to this Nation at present, viz. “That we are not contented with a plain Bill of Fare; that we ransack the Elements of Earth, Air, and Water, for all sorts of Creatures to gratify our wanton and luxurious Appetites: That as if our Tables were too narrow and short to hold our Provisions, we heap them up upon one another. And lastly, That to create a false Appetite, we rack our Cook’s inventions for new Sauces and Provocations to make the superfluous Morsel go down with the greatest Gust.”
This is not any groundless Observation, but it carries an Experimental Conviction along with it. Look into all our publick Entertainments and Feasts, and see whether Luxury and Intemperance be not too predominant in them. Men, upon such Occasions, think it justifiable to give themselves the Loose, to eat heartily, and to drink deeply; and many think themselves not welcome, or well entertained, if the Master of the Feast be so wise as not to not give them an Occasion of losing the MAN, and assuming the BEAST.
Cornaro, Luigi. Sure and Certain Methods of Attaining a Long and Healthful Life. London, UK: Daniel Midwinter, 1722.
along the road’s verge
field work
portrait, Bill
language musing
Language arose as a crucial ‘technology’ in the milieu of the social. To connect with an Other requires a protocol—a common expressive pathway shared by the Self and the Other—in dialogue. This is an old idea.
The sharing and its deep compulsion arises in the context of momentary, memorable, and activated Life combined with the desire to communicate. (Noting the strange paradigm that ‘not communicating’ or silence is also communication in that social context.) The greater the desire to ‘connect,’ the more adaptable and flexible the two must be in their attempts to understand one another.
This is where the question of wider social viability enters the process. The more idiosyncratic ones choice of communications protocol (language usage or even which language itself) the smaller the potential receiver-base.
For example—formulaic as a genre—romance novels strike me as suffering from a simplistic extreme within such a paradigm. From the limited sampling that I’ve done, the contained language (English) and its usage is banal and bland: mealy-mouthed. As is the ultimate canned banality of the overarching ‘message’ that is being communicated: it’s more than enough to read the liner notes, look at the cover, or note where the book is shelved in the bookstore or library. Predictability allows for wider dissemination, a wider audience, and, thus, in a capitalist system, a better cash flow.
Some of the most striking texts I’ve encountered are the most complex, non-standard, idiosyncratic, dated—and yet are the most profound for their internal reach. Listening to the Other, receiving such texts requires an empathy for and open-ness to the Other that is rarely easy. Within a hunger for knowledge, enlightenment, or basic insight, these texts are sought out in the stead of couldn’t-put-it-down casual time-filling, time-killing reading.
It’s all about numbers. You may have a secret protocol that you use with only one Other in the cosmos: wonderful, as the carrier of idiosyncratic energies between the Self and the Other, it likely allows for exchanges incomprehensible and unreachable to any third-party.
This text has a meta-message: a dearth of readers indicates that it is unreadable: dour, boring, poorly structured, usage too garbled, or merely not relevant. Reaching relevancy through other means (protocols)—sonic or visual—to bridge the unbridgeable gap between the Self and the Other—also remains a challenge. Disciplined understanding and the application of more widely used protocols would be the growth-oriented marketing strategy in the attention economy. So would identifying and filling a particular need of the Other. Those needs are apparently filled by the oligarchs of the current social milieu. Besides, I can’t manage the level of discipline when faced by the fact that the species may not exist in another 2000 years. Transcribing what needs to appear on the screen in the moment is the most I can do in this transitory social incarnation.
218070
City Market Fuel #404, 122 Gunnison River Drive
6.4 gallons
$3.379/gallon
$21.64
field work
self-portrait
how it works
Ambient sound recording entails an active and concentrated listening while in stasis in the particular, enveloping location. Not a bad avocation. A full-bodied attention to sonic energies is often a suffusing balm amidst the chaotic swirl of (human) Life.
reason – will
We are perceivers. We are an awareness; we are not objects; we have no solidity. We are boundless. The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our passage on earth convenient. It is only a description that was created to help us. We, or rather our reason, forget that the description is only a description and thus we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious circle from which we rarely emerge in our lifetime … So, in essence, the world that your reason wants to sustain is the world created by a description and its dogmatic and inviolable rules, which the reason learns to accept and defend … from now on you should let yourself perceive whether the description is upheld by your reason or by your will.
Castaneda, Carlos. Tales of Power. New York, NY: Washington Square Press, 1974.
coitus in cena*
This was a year of infestations. Several varieties of grasshoppers hopped and flew rampant for a couple months, stripped my sole apple tree of leaves and were working hard on the native plum trees, stripping both the leaves and bark off any new shoots.
As with all natural systems, though, a boom of one species will generate a boom in another. Predator, prey. In this case, praying mantises (Mantis religiosa), supremely well equipped to capture and consume the bumper crop of grasshoppers. There are hundreds of both beige and green mantises everywhere on the property. They have always held a fascination for me, primarily how attentive they are to the presence of another being. Commonly kept as pets, I encountered this pair in rural Colombia:
Then the sex begins.
And ends.
* coitus during dinner
Case study: Fluvial Hazard Zone
“The Fluvial Hazard Zone (FHZ) is defined as the area a stream has occupied in recent history, may occupy, or may physically influence as it stores and transports water, sediment, and debris.”
Local, state, and federal agencies often collaborate on projects concerning emergency preparedness and community resilience. In this case, the Colorado Geological Survey assisted the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA), and local governments by providing technical expertise for the Colorado Hazard Mapping Program (CHAMP). The CHAMP project facilitates effective long-term flood hazard reduction in Colorado. A crucial part of that process is the development of FHZ mapping protocols and debris flow hazard assessments in combination with traditional floodplain mapping. Community engagement and education on the FHZ protocols is ongoing across the state. more “Case study: Fluvial Hazard Zone”
217912
City Market Fuel #447, 903 State Highway 133
9.909 gallons
$3.869/gallon
$38.34
on Ward Creek
on Ward Creek
Ed: For new subscribers, selecting the red dot in the middle of the map will start the audio sample which can then be controlled using the play-bar and volume/mute (speaker) icon.