posted
  • place: Eckert, Colorado

field work

field work, bi-annual trip to the landfill, Eckert, Colorado, March ©2025 hopkins/neoscenes.
field work, bi-annual trip to the landfill, Eckert, Colorado, March ©2025 hopkins/neoscenes.

Much as I dislike putting stuff into a landfill, can’t avoid it sometimes. Better to recycle, re-use, down-cycle, etc. But when faced with liquidating the house and property, there are some things that end up extraneous to any possible usage. Thus a trip to the somewhat apocalyptic scenario that is the local landfill. It’s set in “The Adobes”, dramatic Mancos Shale (Prairie Canyon Member, Upper Cretaceous) badlands on the southern flank of Grand Mesa.

It is quite depressing to see what isn’t being recycled … all kinds of metal, glass, wood. A picker could make a fortune with a truck, just taking scrap metal to Recla (“We put the “S” in (s)crap!” down in Montrose). I snagged a few small aluminum bits that I will add to my next—and hopefully last—recycling run from the property. But the heavy machinery rigs are running around crushing, compacting, and smoothing the detritus, so, it’s not particularly safe trying to retrieve anything.

field work, bi-annual trip to the landfill, Eckert, Colorado, May ©2022 hopkins/neoscenes.
field work, bi-annual trip to the landfill, Eckert, Colorado, May ©2022 hopkins/neoscenes.
posted
  • place: Denver, Colorado

Case Study: Denver – 9 August 1967

Major magnitude 5.3 earthquake shock in Denver

On 9 August 1967, Denver experienced an earthquake that caught the city’s residents by surprise. The tremor, which registered 5.3 on the Richter scale, was particularly notable as it occurred in a region not typically associated with significant seismic activity. What made this earthquake even more remarkable was its eventual connection to human activity—specifically, the disposal of wastewater at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a chemical weapons manufacturing facility northeast of the city. This event would later become a classic case study in induced seismicity, where human actions trigger earthquakes, and it helped establish important precedents for understanding the relationship between fluid injection into the ground and subsequent seismic events.

One of the strongest and most economically damaging earthquakes to affect the Denver area in the 1960s occurred on August 9, 1967 around 6:30 AM, awakening and frightening thousands of people. This magnitude 5.3 earthquake, centered near Commerce City, caused more than eight million dollars (2022 dollars) in damage in Denver and the northern suburbs.

Felt reports and intensity ratings were described by von Hake and Cloud (1984). Intensity VII damage was reported in Northglenn, where plate glass windows broke, many walls, ceilings, foundations, and concrete floors cracked, and several businesses sustained damage due to fallen merchandise. One liquor store had estimated damage at USD $90,000 to $175,000 (2022 dollars).

Intensity VI damage was reported in 28 locations, many of which suffered considerable cracked plaster and mortar, broken windows, damaged foundations and chimneys, and damage to household goods. The earthquake was felt as far as Sterling to the northeast and Pueblo, Colorado to the south, as well as north to Laramie, Wyoming.

Based on the isoseismal map, the estimated felt area was about 20,000 mi2 (50,000 km2). Von Hake and Cloud (1984) proposed a size of 15,000 mi2 (39,000 km2), while Hadsell (1968) indicated it was felt over 45,000 mi2 (117,000 km2). Docekal (1970) reported a felt area of 20,000 mi2 (52,000 km2). A magnitude of Mb 5.3 was reported for this earthquake by von Hake and Cloud (1969). Nuttli and others (1979) calculated an Mb of 4.9 and ms of 4.4. Herrmann and others (1981) suggested a focal depth of 1.9 mi (3 km) for this event. The overall felt area is prominently elongated in directions parallel and perpendicular to the (north-south oriented Front Range) mountain front. The intensity V and VI contours are also oriented in an elongate pattern perpendicular to the mountain front.

Aerial view of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, south plant, 1970. Photo credit: US Library of Congress.
Aerial view of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, south plant, 1970. Photo credit: US Library of Congress.

This substantial earthquake, the largest of a long series, is believed to have been triggered by the deep injection of chemically-charged wastewater into a borehole drilled to a depth of 12,045 ft (3671 m) at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in 1961. It was followed by an earthquake of magnitude 5.2 on November 27, 1967. In total, between 1962 and 1967 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recorded over 1,500 earthquakes in the area. The Arsenal was a large chemical weapons-manufacturing facility run by the U.S. Army in Commerce City. Wastewater injection at the site stopped in 1966 and the entire facility closed in 1992. Much of the area is now a national wildlife refuge.

Citations NOTE: The ON-002 Earthquake Reference Collection which includes most of the following references, and 700 more—is available to researchers—see instructions on that page to access the collection.

Bardwell, George E. “Some Statistical Features of the Relationship between Rocky Mountain Arsenal Waste Disposal and Frequency of Earthquakes.” The Mountain Geologist 3, no. 1 (1966): 37–42.
more “Case Study: Denver – 9 August 1967”
posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

house for sale

Open season! If you are looking for a retreat from the busy world, one with fertile soil, water rights, and high agricultural potential, next to some of the best Nordic skiing in the US, silent nights with dark starry skies, bright days with a sky to watch, read on. There’s plenty of wildlife: every sort of raptor, ravens, Colorado bluebirds, jays, magpies, flickers, marmots, foxes, deer, and ground squirrels, along with occasional coyotes, mountain lions, elk, and bears (haven’t personally seen these latter two on my property per se, but they are around!). The property is at 6500 ft (2000 m) on the southern flank of Grand Mesa with fine spacious views of the Uncompaghre Uplift, the Mesa, and the San Juan Mountains to the south. I’ve got decent neighbors as well.

the property, Cedaredge, Colorado, June ©2024 hopkins/neoscenes.
the property, Cedaredge, Colorado, June ©2024 hopkins/neoscenes.

I’ve put in a lot of sweat equity improving both the entire property and the house: removing tons (literally) of detritus from prior residents, caring for the trees and other vegetation, re-doing the bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen (with its ever-changing view from the sink!); upgrading parts of the roofing; re-doing the deck; and the whole house is scheduled to be painted next week. Also, because the property is largely open, it is insurable (unlike many rural properties in the state)! This is becoming a serious issue because of climate change and risk of natural disasters! The property is essentially not at risk of flooding, landslide, rockfall, earthquake, or fire.

Much of the process has followed the principle of sustainable DWAM (doing with available materials), and with the idea of sustainably re-wilding the property.

– 13.4 acres (5.4 hectares) 18145 Surface Creek Road, Cedaredge.

– 2 bedroom, 1 bath; 1362 sq ft; 300 sq ft finished root cellar w/ water and electricity; 600 sq ft workshop/outbuilding; 2 additional outbuilding/stable areas; metal roofing throughout; some fencing supplies available;

– several producing fruit trees: apricot, apple, cherry plum.

The best apricot tree on the property, July ©2022 hopkins/neoscenes.
The best apricot tree on the property, July ©2022 hopkins/neoscenes.

– Electricity (DMEA) to house and garage (220v) with a 30 amp RV hook-up.

– Upper Surface Creek Water Users Association (USCDWUA) provides domestic water from their treatment plant about five miles upstream

– Agricultural water shares in Leon Lake and Marcot Park Ditch and Reservoir Companies.

– Fiber-optic internet to the house (up to 8gb available) via Elevate.

– Eligible as an Agricultural Property.

– USDA loan eligibility.

– Cedaredge is a small town about two miles away. It’s got a decent grocery store, laundromat, library, dispensary, thrift stores, doctor/dentist offices, a handful of restaurants, excellent acupuncture/CTM center, the Grand Mesa Arts Center, elementary-through-high schools, and a friendly Ace hardware store. There are abundant fruit, vegetable, wine and other organic sources locally, and if you are a carnivore, there’s plenty of game.

– Delta (17 mi); Paonia (32 mi); Montrose (40 mi); Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (40 mi); Grand Junction (50 mi); Telluride (100 mi); Moab UT (150 mi); Denver (250 mi).

Aspen (Populus tremuloides), Cole Reservoir #5, Grand Mesa, Colorado, September ©2024 hopkins/neoscenes.
Aspen (Populus tremuloides), Cole Reservoir #5, Grand Mesa, Colorado, September ©2024 hopkins/neoscenes.

– if escape from this pleasant reverie is necessary, both Montrose and Grand Junction have airports with daily direct flights to DFW, Salt Lake, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and other points.

— if you know anyone who would be interested, let me know, I’m prepared for sale-by-owner. Price $400,000. The house will be listed in a few weeks at $459,000, I will not be signing with a RE agent until then.

the property, Cedaredge, Colorado, March ©2024 hopkins/neoscenes.
the property, Cedaredge, Colorado, March ©2024 hopkins/neoscenes.

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

the next day?

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17–28)

The speed of time’s arrow—against the wind-down of entropy—increases towards stage left. Can it find its mark? Meh. It’s not a good metaphor to encapsulate the flow of the temporal within the imagination of mind. Maybe tomorrow I’ll come up with a better one.

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

going to the mat

It’s difficult to write these days. Internal monologues are focused on figuring out how to pack up life asap. It’s a bit strange to say that the past four-plus years is the longest I’ve lived in one place continuously since leaving my parents home at 17 y.o. And further, it’s one of the few periods of time that I have had *all* my belongings in one place and (mostly) out of boxes. The majority of my adult life, my stuff has been in a storage unit somewhere—New Jersey, Prescott, Golden, Boulder—or in someone’s garage or so. Uff. Packing the entire archive back up seems absurd as it was hardly accessed in the time it was out of boxes. A useless pile of detritus. Why, why, why subject myself to the ignominy and energy-waste of maintaining something that I’m the only one who has an interest in it?

Now Reading: Absorbing the epic six-volume autobiography, Min Kamp, from Norwegian, Karl Ove Knausgård. At Zander’s recommendation, and then, once I started and realized that I actually was in the same locations at the same times—Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Kristiansand, Oslo—as Karl Ove back when I was spending a fair amount of time in Norway in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A compelling read.

Knausgård, Karl Ove. My Struggle: Book Two: A Man in Love. Translated by Don Bartlett. 1st Archipelago books edition. Vol. 2. 6 vols. Brooklyn, NY: Archipelago Books, 573.

I recently checked in with Julia, my former CGS intern. She’s a Mines (hydrogeology) graduate, who has, wonderfully, found a shared pathway to follow her bliss. She and her boyfriend, Torin, also a Mines alumni, have taken their connection with yoga to a higher level, gaining the necessary credentials for teaching and are planning to go international with that sooner than later. They have also started a YouTube channel—Wellbeing Cafe—already with a huge number of yoga routines and a variety of other material. Very cool to see this transition.

Somewhat disturbing to me, though, is that part of this personal evolution is almost forced to take place within the sphere of social media, especially YouTube, given the oligarchic control that it exerts on any and all users. That and the insertion of ads that cannot be cancelled or avoided—all of them utterly useless and annoying—until the channel receives a minimum number of subscribers (1,000). At that point the channel owners can at least select when the ad is played. Otherwise, one will show up in the middle of a yoga sequence or more often. I was stuck with one that played for ten minutes. Finding an independent pathway to socio-economic viability is challenging for their generation. They could have gone full-engineering and been working in a (potentially) stifling ‘regular’ job with deluxe cash flows. But they are cognizant of the lives of some of their cohort who are extremely unhappy (and unhealthy!), coasting along on that trajectory. Given the wider-scale complexity of what is ‘going on’ in late-stage Empire, best to work at basic life-skills like body-health, psycho-spiritual development, consumption habits, community-building, and look to develop trajectories that are beyond the reach of Empire (if that is possible in this new-ish multi-lateral oligarch-and-authoritarian-driven global power struggle).

Later, I juxtapose those assessments with the swirl of jagged thoughts and impressions that are filling my consciousness: monkey-brain on amphetamines, faugh. Complexity increasing, logarithmic, with age (of Self and Empire), while neuronal synapses are dulled, blank. Is this what life *is*, or what it becomes when attention is shredded by too much stuff? Packing boxes, why hold so tightly to this stuff when it will likely sit in those boxes for a long time. Possibly for the existing life-time! Having is a form of suffocation, burdened by excretions of other lives, but mostly my own. Giving is an exhalation, from the deep belly, giving inspiration to the cosmos.

Venus is high and brilliant in the evening, Saturn much less so in the sunset’s glare, Jupiter, Mars high with the waxing, near full Luna, invisible-but-present Uranus. I regularly take a late night stroll around the property before bed, no matter how cold. Waking the deer snoozing in the openness, their greenish-yellow headLight eyes blazing in my headlamp. First encounter, the eye pairs rise vertically, then, after staring, frozen, as the LED supernova waxes, they bolt to the tree line or across the street to a neighbor’s yard. Occasionally, a tinier pair of eyes, one of several feral cats that are encountered, or, rarely, a fox or skunk. So far no encounters with the large carnivores that do frequent the area: bears and mountain lions. Much of the walk is without the headlamp on, and aside from the always-on brightest-Light-within-several-miles that my neighbor installed a year ago, it’s dark with the brilliant streak of the Milky Way in all its offset-rotational glory.

A 30-minute call with George, I feel rusty, awkward and jumbled. He and I never developed an audio tele-presence connection, given the logistics and expense back when. Our connection was forged across some immersive instances of intense f-2-f interaction. After those formative encounters at Mines and in Santa Monica in the early 1980s, and aside from one more f-2-f in 1989, it’s always been text. Hand-written or typed letters through the post, then email, and these days, texting. I wonder if we will ever cross physical paths again in this incarnation. Doubtful, especially when I remove myself from this nation, and head for another, though there are no guarantees of anything anywhere anymore.

posted
  • place: Denver, Colorado

DMNS Meteorite Collection

Colleagues at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, led by Dr. James Hagadorn, the Curator of Geology at the museum, released a fine 36-page publication The Meteorite Collection of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. It contains a fascinating history of the collection with back stories on some of the many specimens, along with a reference list and a full catalog of the collection. It’s available as a free pdf download, but the paper copy is well worth the $3.16 price-point (how do they manage to sell it for so little??). It’s the next best thing to a visit to the DMNS … when in Denver!

RT-0046503-dmns-sr-17-meteorites

Hagadorn, James W., Emerald J. Spindler, Ada K. Bowles, and Nicole M. Neu-Yagle. Denver Museum of Nature and Science Report 17: The Meteorite Collection. Vol. December 11, 2019. Denver Museum of Nature and Science Report SR-17. Denver, CO: The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2019.

Following is a selection of meteorite specimens in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science collection:

Broken piece of Cañon City meteorite (DMNH EGT.165), fell through the roof of a garage in Cañon City, Colorado, 1973. Exhibits black fusion crust surrounding an interior dominated by lighter-colored minerals. Photo credit: R. Wicker for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Broken piece of Cañon City meteorite (DMNH EGT.165), fell through the roof of a garage in Cañon City, Colorado, 1973. Exhibits black fusion crust surrounding an interior dominated by lighter-colored minerals. Photo credit: R. Wicker for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

more “DMNS Meteorite Collection”

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

QoD

In the stead of the tedious roll-calling in my more formal university classes, I started to implement a Question of the Day process. At the beginning of the semester, at the start of each session, one student was asked come up with a question and pose it on the QoD form which then circulated around the room during the session, to be filled out as decided by each individual. I placed no restrictions on content, and one didn’t have to answer at all, but at least had to note presence.

This turned out to be a marvelous way to tap into individual/personal energies that students would typically not ‘reveal’ in a classroom setting. As the paper circulated, accumulating answers, it would travel slower and slower as students read prior answers and came up with their own. The process sparked both basic human connection as well as significant discussion on occasion, and on others, amusement. After a couple weeks of me assigning the Questioner, there were usually volunteers at the beginning of each session who had come up with something to query their peers with. Also interesting was the sheer variety of handwriting samples and forms of expression.

Question of the Day, Atlas2000, 25 April 2013, CU Boulder, Colorado.
Question of the Day, Atlas2000, 25 April 2013, CU Boulder, Colorado.

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

clouds and meaninglessness

Siri's butikk, Bergen, Norway, September ©1993 hopkins/neoscenes.
Siri’s butikk, Bergen, Norway, September ©1993 hopkins/neoscenes.

Siri's butikk, Bergen, Norway, September ©1993 hopkins/neoscenes.
Siri’s butikk, Bergen, Norway, September ©1993 hopkins/neoscenes.

I set off with a sigh. Above me the entire sky had opened. What a few hours earlier had been plain, dense cloud cover now took on landscape-like formations, a chasm with long flat stretches, steep walls, and sudden pinnacles, in some places white and substantial like snow, in others gray and as hard as rock, while the huge surfaces illuminated by the sunset did not shine or gleam or have a reddish glow, as they could, rather they seemed as if they had been dipped in some liquid. They hung over the town, muted red, dark-pink, surrounded by every conceivable nuance of gray. The setting was wild and beautiful. Actually everyone should be in the streets, I thought, cars should be stopping, doors should be opened and drivers and passengers emerging with heads raised and eyes sparkling with curiosity and a craving for beauty, for what was it that was going on above our heads?

However, a few glances at most were cast upward, perhaps followed by isolated comments about how beautiful the evening was, for sights like this were not exceptional, on the contrary, hardly a day passed without the sky being filled with fantastic cloud formations, each and every one illuminated in unique, never-to-be-repeated ways, and since what you see every day is what you never see, we lived our lives under the constantly changing sky without sparing it a glance or a thought. And why should we? If the various formations had had some meaning, if, for example, there had been concealed signs and messages for us which it was important we decode correctly, unceasing attention to what was happening would have been inescapable and understandable. But this was not the case of course, the various cloud shapes and hues meant nothing, what they looked like at any given juncture was based on chance, so if there was anything the clouds suggested it was meaninglessness in its purest form.

Knausgård, Karl Ove. My Struggle. Translated by Don Bartlett. 1st Archipelago books edition. Vol. 1. 6 vols. Brooklyn, NY: Archipelago Books, 2012.

word, Bergen, Norway, September©1993 hopkins/neoscenes.
word, Bergen, Norway, September©1993 hopkins/neoscenes.

The photos were made around the same time Karl Ove was living in Bergen: I was teaching at KHiB (now the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen). Probably no need to explain the resonance of this particular passage to other entries on this blog.

posted
  • place: online

collected from you

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posted
  • place: Hawaii

from the archive

Arrival on Oahu, Rev. Dr. Paul Toms of Park Street Congregational Church, Boston, Massachusetts, leading a group of church ladies on a tour of Hawaii, July ©1967.
Arrival on Oahu, Rev. Dr. Paul Toms of Park Street Congregational Church, Boston, Massachusetts, leading a group of church ladies on a tour of Hawaii, July ©1967.

Arrival on Hawaii, Rev. Dr. Paul Toms of Park Street Congregational Church, Boston, Massachusetts, leading a group of church ladies on a tour of Hawaii, July ©1967.
Arrival on Hawaii, Rev. Dr. Paul Toms of Park Street Congregational Church, Boston, Massachusetts, leading a group of church ladies on a tour of Hawaii, July ©1967.

My favorite aunt, Mary MacKenzie, was Dr. Toms’ secretary for many years. She is in both photos, with dark hair, at the top of the stairs in the middle, holding her sunglasses and camera, and on the second photo, fourth from the far left, again holding her sunglasses, up in the air. Dr. Toms, aka “Kahu,” is the somewhat impassive fellow in the dark suit and sunglasses looking more like a Secret Service agent … Hawaii-Five-O, here we come!

posted
  • place: online; Vilnius, Lithuania; Baltimore, Maryland; and Linz, Austria

The Long Night of Radio Art

At the vilma offices thanks to Gediminas and Nomeda — for hosting the stream I’m sending to Steve of art@radio in Baltimore who has an elaborate studio set-up for the live streaming he’ll be doing from there to The Long Night of Radio Art that is part of the Reinventing Radio project of KunstRadio. the whole project will be broadcast on FM, shortwave, a special 5.1 digital satellite transmission, and online. (Taking a breath). Yeah, live online. Meet August on the IRC channel broadcasting from Santa Barbara.

The Long Night of Radio Art, online and Linz, Austria, September ©2004 hopkins/neoscenes.
The Long Night of Radio Art, online and Linz, Austria, September ©2004 hopkins/neoscenes.

The Long Night of Radio Art, online and Linz, Austria, September ©2004 hopkins/neoscenes.
The Long Night of Radio Art, online and Linz, Austria, September ©2004 hopkins/neoscenes.

Baltimore, USA :: jamming radiophonic space :: 19:30 – 06:00 Eastern Standard Time

“jamming radiophonic space,” modulates the interplay of radio, Internet, wireless transmission, an private space.

This experientially diverse and geographically scattered group will contribute to “jamming radiophonic space” through decentralized, networked, and collaborative strategies of production and distribution. Streaming feeds from microphones places in and around artists’ workspaces will be gathered along with ambient sound called in via wireless and landline phones; requests have already gone out over electronic list-serves for individuals to call in and point their live phones for 10 or 15 minutes towards sounds emblematic of their time and place.

These sonic interruptions will then be mixed and processed into a stream of “hot media” by artists present in the Baltimore studio space using baby monitors, short-wave radios, software, and other improvised sound tools. The stream will then be made available world-wide to streaming clients via wired and wireless data connections.

Artists:

Chris Basile, Goeff Bell, Steve Bradley, Phaye Poliakoff-Chen, Chad Eby, John Hopkins (Vilnius, LT), Brendan Howell, John Hudak, Jacob Kirkegaard, Tim Nohe, Joe Reinsel, Jodi Rose, Bill Shewbridge, Nicole Shiflet, John Sturgeon, and others …

The Long Night of Radio Art, online and Linz, Austria, September ©2004 hopkins/neoscenes.
The Long Night of Radio Art, online and Linz, Austria, September ©2004 hopkins/neoscenes.

posted
  • place: Great Sand Dunes National Preserve, Colorado

field work

looking south to parts of the Blanca Massif from the east side of Mt. Herard, Great Sand Dunes National Preserve, Colorado, September ©2018 hopkins/neoscenes.
looking south to parts of the Blanca Massif from the east side of Mt. Herard, Great Sand Dunes National Preserve, Colorado, September ©2018 hopkins/neoscenes.

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

from Story Club

[ED: Edited to clarify sense and meaning. It will likely be edited after posting as well.]

George, you know me as something of a cynic, and while I have always admired you and your trajectory, and what you have accomplished over the past 45 years, I’m afraid that I disagree with the idea that culture (cultural production) can save our society from what is, perhaps, an inevitable trajectory. Having just finished reading

Klemperer, Victor. To the Bitter End: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1942–1945. 1st ed. Vol. 2. 3 vols. New York, NY: Random House, 1999.

and

Klemperer, Victor, and Martin Brady. The Language of the Third Reich: LTI Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist’s Notebook. Bloomsbury Revelations edition. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

I was reminded how culture is often (always?) overtaken (taken over?) and becomes an extension of the dominating state (or power in control of the state). While throughout the Third Reich, there were countless small acts of kindness in the face of extreme social oppression and control, this did not stop the juggernaut of singular human pathology turning the overall society into a violent (Nazi) killing machine. And along with the killing, that machine simply subsumed cultural production. Remember book-banning-then-burning? Oh, wait, no need to remember, I can read about the banning here, now!

The foundation of the Amurikan system since WWII is predicated on an often-hidden-but-often-expressed element of violence that has superseded any prior Empires by orders of magnitude. We are of that system, and fully immersed within it. Think of both our long-ago stints in service of the “Imperialist Vanguard”!

I do truly hope that your optimism is not misplaced as we seem to slide into a vortex quite similar to the many vortices experienced by humans in the past and/or in other places. I often have the feeling that so many people in the contemporary developed world are so fully immersed in the consumption of mediated constructs of the world that unmediated, meat-space, direct apprehension of the world has been lost or at least stripped of its value. This would include direct face-to-face engagement with proximal Life (not in films, not online, not in books, but in direct expression and embodied impression). This is a fundamental of community that has been severely drained of vitality … by, for example, ‘social media’. Vitality going down the drain, along with the fundamental structures of a sustainable society.

In a way, the power of Klemperer’s diaries, as written/mediated, contradict everything I have expressed here and do support your core idea, as they were ‘simply’ his writings—detailed daily reflections on events and feelings in his more immediate surrounds—that, through his perseverance, made it, bound, to my bedside table. Thence, in hand, giving rise to change within my embodied system. However, the time I spent reading them, well, would it have been better spent helping a neighbor (as I have been helped on occasion during my recent rural existence)? We cannot have anything approaching a democracy without community, and neither can we have a just or truly diverse society without the repeated, crucial encounter with the Other: open, embodied, hypostatic, indeterminate, unscripted, and imbued with the active presence of change. (Again, I contradict, yes, writing can do this, any mediated fragment of culture can do this, but …)

Hope this jangling screed doesn’t come across badly. Maybe I should have kept it in our private convos, such as they are! You know my respect for you. So it goes.

to Story Club, and Prof. Saunders, December 2024.

Perhaps this points to the idea that there are only small acts of kindness. That there are, in perceived reality, no societal, cultural acts of kindness. That tribal is tribal, clan is clan, and the will to survive in that exclusive social configuration is primal and primary. Altruism, while potentially able to bridge particular rival societal strictures in particular instances, is not able to change wider societal trajectories. This may be the source of liberal failure: imagining, falsely, that it is possible to do what is not possible, taming animal nature. Perhaps this impulse is simply another expression of human hubris. It also may explain the sudden withdrawal of (many) liberals from the scene in the moment, in the face of that wider swell (tsunami!) of societal grievance led by … a singular pathological will-to-survive. This retreat may have a texture of localized kindness, wonderful! But cataclysm at the more global scale may be inevitable. Indeed, at the psycho-spiritual scale maybe this is what Life is: the challenge to find a(n internal) energy source for the expression of kindness in the cataclysm. Not sure I personally have the capacity for this anymore, but that is another issue.

posted
  • place: Four Corners, Colorado

field work

Chimney Rock, a resistant column of the Upper Cretaceous Point Lookout Sandstone skirted by Mancos Shale, Towaoc, Colorado, August ©2018 hopkins/neoscenes.
Chimney Rock, a resistant column of the Upper Cretaceous Point Lookout Sandstone skirted by Mancos Shale, Towaoc, Colorado, August ©2018 hopkins/neoscenes.

posted
  • place: Hoboken, New Jersey

documentation

[ED: Documentation, yes. That’s all I do with the photography, all I ever did. Documenting immediate life scrolling by. And let that accumulate into a modest mass of imagery. Extracted from the mass, they appear fragmentary, and not so replete with ‘meaning.’ Here’s a handful from a warm 1988 summer’s end.]

Upon my re-patriation after three months in Iceland, Germany, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, following is a sample of what happened hanging with Willy & Andy in Hoboken:

concert in Central Park, Manhattan, New York, August ©1988 hopkins/neoscenes.
concert in Central Park, Manhattan, New York, August ©1988 hopkins/neoscenes.

at Willy & Andy's, Hoboken, New Jersey, August ©1988, hopkins/neoscenes.
at Willy & Andy’s, Hoboken, New Jersey, August ©1988, hopkins/neoscenes.

Willy & Andy, Hoboken, New Jersey, August ©1988, hopkins/neoscenes.
Willy & Andy, Hoboken, New Jersey, August ©1988, hopkins/neoscenes.

Andy, Hoboken, New Jersey, August ©1988, hopkins/neoscenes.
Andy, Hoboken, New Jersey, August ©1988, hopkins/neoscenes.

Lower Manhattan from Hoboken, New Jersey, August ©1988, hopkins/neoscenes.
Lower Manhattan from Hoboken, New Jersey, August ©1988, hopkins/neoscenes.

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

The Disappearance of Liberal Education

[ED: Almost 75 years ago, this essay was published in a collection accompanying the 1954 set of The Great Books of the Western World, published by Britannica Press. While that collection of more than fifty authors—philosophers, playrights, scientists, authors, economists—is mostly all ‘Western and white,’ and definitely men, there is some relevant substance to the contemporary issues facing the US education system contained (t)herein. Primarily, the background question of shared understandings about reality: when these are no longer shared, democracy cannot proceed. At this juncture, I have little hope that the wider social system in the US is capable of pulling itself back from the devolution that appears to be accelerating. Many personal worries surround that. I predict that forms of ‘martial law’ will be declared in the US before four years are up, and I will not be surprised if it begins to appear widely in the next year. By then, soft critique from the ‘liberal’ side of the country will be moot and … wholly inadequate, as has happened before in the bowels of history. Privilege continues to insulate the 1% and [social] media [oligarchs] continue to siphon off the last drops of societal life-blood: community engagement. Shilling instead a form of attention-harvesting that, as with other forms of capital, concentrates ever more power in the hands of ever fewer individuals. What could possibly go wrong?

I can barely continue reading Klemperer‘s “Language of the Third Reich” as it resonates so powerfully across almost a century to this very moment.

The countries of the West are committed to universal, free, compulsory education. The United States first made this commitment and has extended it further than any other. In this country, 92.5% of the children who are fourteen years old and 71.3% of those between fourteen and seventeen are in school. It will not be suggested that they are receiving the education that the democratic ideal requires. The West has not accepted the proposition that the democratic ideal demands liberal education for all. In the United States, at least, the prevailing opinion seems to be that the demands of that ideal are met by universal schooling, rather than by universal liberal education. What goes on in school is regarded as of relatively minor importance. The object appears to be to keep the child off the labor market and to detain him in comparatively sanitary surroundings until we are ready to have him go to work.

The results of universal, free, compulsory education in America can be acceptable only on the theory that the object of the schools is something other than education—for example, to keep the young from cluttering up homes and factories during a difficult period of their lives, or to bring them together for social or recreational purposes.

These last purposes—those which are social and recreational—the American educational system, on a very low level, achieves. It throws young people together. Since this does not take any greater effort than is required to pass compulsory school laws and build buildings, the accomplishment of this purpose would not, at first blush, seem to be a matter for boasting. Yet we often hear of it as something we should be proud of, and even as something that should suggest to us the main line of a sound educational policy. We often hear that bringing young people together, having them work and play together, and having them organize themselves “democratically” are the great contributions to democracy that the educational system can make. This is an expansion of the doctrine that was popular in my youth about the moral benefits conferred on everybody through intercollegiate athletics, which was, in turn, an adaptation of the remark dubiously imputed to the Duke of Wellington about the relationship between the Battle of Waterloo and the playing fields of Eton.
more “The Disappearance of Liberal Education”

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

keyword cloud

These are the overarching geoscience categories that drove the generation of the full keyword cloud:

Geologic Units; Geologic Temporal; Geologic Terms; Geohazard Terms; CGS Research/Expertise Areas; GIS/map-related; Publication Type Codes; Medium/format; Locations: Geologic Regional, Mtns/Range, Rivers, Towns, Counties; Decades

This is the final specific keyword cloud for the Colorado Geological Survey that was applied across the entire (meta)/data/information space when/wherever possible:

Adams, aggregates, Alamosa*, alluvial fan, alluvium, Animas River, anticline, aquifer, Arapahoe, Archuleta, Arkansas River, arkose, Aurora, avalanche (snow, debris), B, Baca, basalt, basin, batholith, Bent, bibliography, BLM, book, Book Cliffs, Boulder*, Broomfield*, Browns Park, Buena Vista, Bull Lake, CAIC, Cambrian, Canon City Embayment, Carboniferous, Castle Rock*, CBM (coalbed methane), CD, Cenomanian, Cenozoic, Chaffee, Cheyenne, Cheyenne Basin, claystone, Clear Creek, coal, collapsible, Colorado Piedmont, Colorado Plateau, Colorado River, Colorado Spgs, Conejos, conglomerate, correlation, Costilla, county, cover, Cretaceous, Crowley, CSM, Custer, Dakota, data, Dawson, debris fan, debris flow, Delta, Denver Basin, Denver*, derivative, Devonian, diamonds, digital, dikes, Dillon, district, Dolores, Dolores River, Douglas, download, Dry Union, Durango, Eagle, Eagle Basin, Eagle River, earthquake, EG, El Paso, Elbert, Elk Mtns, Energy, engineering, Entrada, environmental, Eocene, eolian, epicenter, erosion, evaporite, expansive, Fairplay, fault, fieldtrip, fold, Fort Union, fossil, Fountain, Fox Hills, free, Fremont, Front Range, Ft Collins, Garfield, geochemistry, Geology, geophysics, geothermal, Gilpin, GIS/gis, glacial, Glenwood Spgs, gneiss, gold, Gore Range, Grand, Grand Junction, granite, granodiorite, gravel, Greeley, groundwater, GSA, Gunnison, Gunnison River, HA, Hazards, HAZUS, Hinsdale, Historic, historic, HM, Holocene, Huerfano, Hugoton Embayment, hydrogeology, hydrology, hydrothermal, igneous, Iles, IS, Jackson, Jefferson, Jurassic, karst, Kiowa, Kit Carson, kml, kmz, La Plata, laccolith, Lake, land use, Land Use Review, landslide, Laramide, Laramie, Larimer, Las Animas, lava, Leadville*, limestone, Lincoln, loess, Logan, Longmont, Loveland, Mancos, map, Maroon, Mesa, Mesaverde, Mesoproterozoic, Mesozoic, metals, metals, metamorphic, meteorite, MI, migmatite, Mineral, Minerals, mines, mining, Minturn, Miocene, Mississippian, Modern, Moffat, molybdenum, monocline, Montezuma, Montrose, monzonite, moraine, Morgan, Morrison, Mosquito Range, MS, mudflow, mudstone, Neogene, Neoproterozoic, Never Summer Mtns, Niobrara, North Park, North Platte River, o&g (oil and gas), oblique, OF, oil shale, ON, Oligocene, Ordovician, orogeny, Otero, Ouray, Paleocene, paleocurrent, Paleogene, paleontology, Paleoproterozoic, Paleozoic, Palmer Divide, Paradox Basin, Park, Park Range, pdf, pegmatite, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Phillips, Piceance Basin, Pierre, Pinedale, Pitkin, Pleistocene, Pliocene, Pliocene-Quaternary, pluton, PO, Post-Laramide, postcard, poster, Precambrian, print, proceedings, Proterozoic, Prowers, Pueblo, Pueblo, quartzite, Quaternary, range/mtns, Raton Basin, region, resources, rhyolite, rift, Rio Blanco, Rio Grande, Rio Grande River, rivers, Roaring Fork River, rockfall, Routt, RS, RT, Saguache, San Juan, San Juan Basin, San Juan Mtns, San Juan River, San Luis Valley, San Miguel, Sand Wash Basin, sandstone, Sangre de Cristo Mtns, Sawatch Range, scarp, schist, Sedgwick, sedimentary, sedimentology, shale, shp, Silurian, silver, sinkhole, slump, slump, software, South Park, South Platte River, SP, Statemap, Steamboat Spgs, subsidence, Summit, susceptibility, susceptibility, swelling soil, syncline, talus, Teller, Tenmile Range, Tertiary, till, travertine, Triassic, tufa, tuff, Uncompahgre River, undermined, uplift, uranium, USFS, USGS, vanadium, video, volcanic, Wall Mountain, Walsenberg, Wasatch, Washington, Water, water quality, Weld, well, well-log, West Elk Mtns, Western Slope, Wet Mtns, White River, Williams Fork, x-section, xls, xml, Yampa River, Yuma, zip, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s, 2030s

* denotes keywords that refer to multiple items with the same name (cities, counties, etc.); and the bolded terms are the five overarching categories of expertise for the organization. These five were used as an ‘upper-level’ basis for organizing the web presence/navigation system.

I received no consequent support from CGS management for the process I undertook implementing a keywording system. Their info/dataspace was in disarray and between the public-facing and internal spaces there was no consistency in even the most basic of data organizational principles (like file naming). Given that the organization was, ostensibly, about science, this seemed to be a major lapse if only from the standpoint of consistency and repeatability. And, given my own responsibilities—publications, editing, social media and web work—directly related to the space, it was essential to do something!

Generating an effective keyword system requires careful balance and deliberate constraints to remain useful. While it’s tempting to create extensive tag clouds, an over-saturated system quickly becomes unwieldy and defeats its purpose of improving information findability. For most systems, an upward limit of ~500 keywords is optimal.

A strong keyword strategy needs to reflect both organizational needs and user behavior patterns, incorporating essential discipline-specific terminology and terms that apply to dispersed-but-related information. However, the keyword universe must be intentionally limited—being selective and strategic about which terms make the cut rather than allowing unlimited growth.

User perspectives are crucial in determining these constraints. I did spend time observing my colleagues, asking them about their search methodologies, and how they managed their own data. The forthcoming information generally illustrated what I observed among my media students: a lack of understanding of what “search” meant in a digital environment. Keywords should reflect how people actually search for content, although most people have rather idiosyncratic ways of dealing with information, often based on their first encounters with the digital tools involved. Generational differences in this regard are substantial, and do change all the time. The implementation of AI into the process are radically changing search processes along with the fundamentals surrounding the very presentation of information on the Internet itself.

A focus on standardizing is crucial, but this restriction will run up against that idiosyncrasy instantly, often with problematic results. Recognized and respected processes for responsible governance of a keyword system are necessary. That said, because of the resources needed to do the actual content tagging, a more-or-less static set of agreed-upon terms is best. If, for example, a new term is added, the entire dataspace should be reviewed for relevant placement of that new term. Otherwise there will be datasets that will not show up in search returns, rendering them redundant and reducing the overall value of data assets, and, negating the entire concept of standards.

According to sources, the CGS has apparently abandoned the keyword application process and even basic file-naming and filing conventions. So counterproductive! Good luck finding stuff!

posted
  • place: a small corner of the cosmos

love

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
…
I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. … I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

King, Martin-Luther, Nobel Acceptance speech, December 1964

A good read on a day such as this one …

posted
  • place: Reykjavík, Iceland

to Björn Bjarnason

12 August 1995

To the Honorable Björn Bjarnason, Minister of Education and Culture

As I have noted that you have put up some home pages asking for input regarding education in Iceland, I am transmitting this formal letter to you via email. (I apologize for not writing in Icelandic, but I am not very good at it even though I have lived in Iceland for five years…)

I am writing this letter to urge your continued support of the Icelandic Academy of Art.

Following I will present some personal opinions concerning the future of the Academy as well as some concrete suggestions and proposals. These considerations are based in my experience in teaching at MHÍ for the past five years as well as numerous guest-teaching positions at other Universities and Academies in Scandinavia and the US. Currently I am serving as Chair of the US-Iceland Fulbright Educational Commission (until September 1995) and as (Founding) Director of the Electronic Media and Photography program at MHÍ. My opinions are not necessarily those of either MHÍ or the Fulbright Board.

I believe Iceland is at a crossroads where the choices, opportunities, and outcomes will be largely determined by how the issue of a national educational policy is developed. As the post of Minister of Education and Culture determines this policy, I believe it to be the most critical cabinet posting in the entire government.

It is important to the future of Iceland that attention be directed to the building-up of a competitive and well-considered program of education in the arts. The recent confirmation of intent as expressed by the Althingi and the government in support of the official formation of the Icelandic Academy must be followed up by concrete action concerning the financial, physical, and ideological future of the institution.
more “to Björn Bjarnason”

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