watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
clouds and meaninglessness
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.
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.
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
watching Hells Kitchen
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.]
watching Hells Kitchen
[ED: If you could see the far horizon, it is comprised of 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. Another note, my property sits on a large alluvial fan (many tens of sq mi) descending from the Mesa and fueled by Surface Creek. The slope of the fan is minus 10-12 degrees from horizontal, as demonstrated from right to left in the photo.]
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.]
field work
above the house
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. Another note, my property sits on a large alluvial fan (many tens of sq mi) descending from the Mesa and fueled by Surface Creek. The slope of the fan is minus 10-12 degrees from horizontal, as demonstrated from right to left in the photo.]
domination of landscape 11:34
domination of landscape 17:35
drone work
field work
solstice sunset
signal, noise
planets rise and fall, radiant, perturbed, tracing ecliptic-bound fate against the stars
time folds itself away, impervious to effect
privilege, a hard armor to disrobe, smothers heaving lungs, straining body, and cosseted mind.
Vital textures have changed with age
clamor, external, forces inward: internal discourse darkens:
an ease in replacing fluid thoughts with
re-creations and re-constructions of life, stripped, desiccated, unmoored
wetware loses to the external coders.
Imagination falters: social sediment unfiltered, osmotic mire clogs input,
head continues to empty of all but noise, signal lost.
And yet, occasionally
sensual input
evades the flow of debris
stars, planets, clouds, riven horizons, wing-prints in the snow. These enter the head and the heart, in silence.
field work
field work
looking up 19:59
field work
domination of landscape 12:41
watching the sky from Zion
field work
virga
A new word crosses the textual radar: virga. Seen often in Western skies, especially immediately prior to Monsoon season, and during transitional seasons. Puzzled that I don’t recall knowing it before. Maybe I just don’t remember.
Best described as wispy filaments of rain, thin curtains, falling beneath storm clouds that haven’t the energy to transition into full-on thunderheads: the falling precipitation evaporates before reaching the ground. Extremely frustrating to the parched throats waiting for any water to fall from heaven in these desert regions.
In the metaphoric: life-blessing from Heaven, reaching the soul on occasion. sensed, though far away. ethereal. falling to quench the soul. gone.
monsoon, Outer Loop
monsoon season, development, machines
monsoon season, development
Powell’s toil
The relief from danger and the joy of success are great. When he who has been chained by wounds to a hospital cot until his canvas tent seems like a dungeon cell, until the groans of those who lie about tortured with probe and knife are piled up, a weight of horror on his ears that he cannot throw off, cannot forget, and until the stench of festering wounds and anaesthetic drugs has filled the air with its loathsome burden, — when he at last goes out into the open field, what a world he sees! How beautiful the sky, how bright the sunshine, what floods of delirious music pour from the throats of birds, how sweet the fragrance of earth and tree and blossom! The first hour of convalescent freedom seems rich recompense for all pain and gloom and terror.
Something like these are the feelings we experience to-night. Ever before us has been an unknown danger, heavier than immediate peril. Every waking hour passed in the Grand Canyon has been one of toil. We have watched with deep solicitude the steady disappearance of our scant supply of rations, and from time to time have seen the river snatch a portion of the little left, while we were a-hungered. And danger and toil were endured in those gloomy depths, where ofttimes clouds hid the sky by day and but a narrow zone of stars could be seen at night. Only during the few hours of deep sleep, consequent on hard labor, has the roar of the waters been hushed. Now the danger is over, now the toil has ceased, now the gloom has disappeared, now the firmament is bounded only by the horizon, and what a vast expanse of constellations can be seen!
Powell, J.W., 1961. The exploration of the Colorado river and its canyons, New York, NY: Dover Publications.
evaporation of clouds
Individuals who rely on someone else’s cloud to store precious, irreplaceable digital artefacts [sic] such as kids photos and videos, need to be aware of their backup and restore position in case their cloud service provider disappears. This runs counter to the perception that the cloud might be secure, and one where the cloud provider, for the most part, is taking care of the complex magic behind the scenes to keep your digital assets safe and sound. — Cloud Price Wars
G. M. Hopkins and the sky
Above the green in turn appeared a red glow, broader and burlier in make; it was softly brindled, and in the ribs or bars the colour was rosier, in the channels where the blue of the sky shone through it was a mallow colour. Above this was a vague lilac. The red was first noticed 45º above the horizon, and spokes or beams could be seen in it, compared by one beholder to a man’s open hand. By 4.45 the red had driven out the green, and, fusing with the remains of the orange, reached the horizon. By that time the east, which had a rose tinge, became of a duller red, compared to sand; according to my observation, the ground of the sky in the east was green or else tawny, and the crimson only in the clouds. A great sheet of heavy dark cloud, with a reefed or puckered make, drew off the west in the course of the pageant: the edge of this and the smaller pellets of cloud that filed across the bright field of the sundown caught a livid green. At 5 the red in the west was fainter, at 5.20 it became notably rosier and livelier; but it was never of a pure rose. A faint dusky blush was left as late as 5.30, or later. While these changes were going on in the sky, the landscape of Ribblesdale glowed with a frowning brown.
G. M. Hopkins, “The Remarkable Sunsets”, Nature 29 (3 January 1884), pp. 222-23 – See more
feeling unloved
As I went into my gmail account recently and began to delete all the past emails that google archives despite me using POP access that would normally, with a traditional email server, delete the contents of the inbox once the emails are downloaded to ones local machine. Of course, the waxing clouds that do more than obscure the horizon of the digital reality portend the total obsolescence of local storage: we are indeed returning to the era of the mainframe architected computing system. Not quite the same, but in terms of local versus centralized control, rather similar.
As I slowly made my way through 9000 emails in the cloud (slow because a clearly-purposed interface that made it a glacial process!) the screen would occasionally display the message:
our servers are feeling unloved
So, we have reached a nexus where data retention, data control, data sharing somehow is an expression of love. gah.
sky 09, hawk moon ridge
watching particular parts of the sky over time
Day 53 – an unkindness
I watch an unkindness of ravens (Corvus corax) circulating above the Ridge harrying a lone red-tail (Buteo jamaicensis) who has to execute full rolls, talons-up, and other acrobatic maneuvers to stave off pecking and otherwise tag-teamed attacks from the largest of the ravens.
And then there are the monsoon clouds that spring up, suddenly a full hammer-headed thundercloud with wisps of precip draggling below the flat bottom of the cloud. God, which way is the wind blowing? Will it skew off over there, 500, 1000, 10,000 meters. Causing a flash flood to gush off the slick-rock canyon sides into the wash that is already choked with sandy runoff. Erosion is quick here, much of the sandstone is so friable that a chunk the size of a shoebox can, almost literally, melt in a year or so. The glacier front-environment in Iceland is like that, although rocks there are chiseled apart with freeze-thaw. Those cycles can happen several times a day with oscillations around 0C +/- 2C. None of the degraded Holocene clays that occur between the volcanic ash and glacial silt will last long — hydrated, and also prone to extreme weathering. Both landscape extremes change in living human memory. It’s only a matter of looking, watching, to see the change, to set a state-observation (a memory) in mind for longer term. The storm brings these thoughts, although in the last days it hasn’t rained here at all. While there have been numerous large storms passing across the Glade, gully-washers, as they are sometimes called, putting cold clear rain down by the centimeter. Nope, nothing here. Thunder, and if at night, horizons flashing with Lightning. But no water. Damn. Still watching the sky.
dark skies (not)
This is a one-minute, ASA 1600, bulb-shutter, that’s why it’s so shaky — that setting requires your finger constantly on the shutter-release. Might as well hand-hold it! Of course, there’s the crappy lens, too. No meteors either. There was some high thin clouds which picked up the Light pollution from Grand Junction to the east. This is looking west, and even with all these problems, the Milky Way is pretty impressive to look at once eyes have adjusted to the darkness. The Perseids were non-existent, even on my warped scale, although the high cloud cover didn’t help viewing much. Anyway, more skies on Hawk Moon Ridge.
Monday, 06 May, 1963
John Strano & Carl Neilsen back from Ascension Island; there was cloud over the island during the last Rex re-entry; JLV was in the WV-2, seeing it optically. JS said the plotter showing the actual & predicted tracks showed almost the same track, so the TTR was placed on the nose cone successfully.
Requested by WZL to furnish him with a list showing the medium of record of each TRAP III instrument; phoned to RJ Adams @ Bendix who is at Lockheed / Ontario — Area code 714 YUkon 4-1234/297-495; he shifted me to 495/489 Jim Cherry who gave me enough info to make up a table. A copy is in the TRAP III file. Worked up a table by longhand and left it with Shirley.
High clouds
Rain in PM
Cool last night.
Took Ford to Elbery’s in Cambridge to have the steering block replaced, some body work — a spot, tailgate & rear fender seams — inspection, & front wheel alignment. Made arrangements with Mr. Kemp, Elbery Credit Manager to pay half of it now , the rest in 30 days.
Called Lake but he was out, so talked to Geo Costello: 1) the 1563A provided the best signal yet in the SS & Hawey Rooms; 2) the lavalier mike didn’t work out as we need a goose neck; 3) TV monitor burned output repair; 4) R-C networks on phase inverter grids — signal rectified to audio so went on there, we will have to put them on the grid of some tube in the front end.
He will pick up the TV unit tomorrow.
Fred Erikson found the R1 resistor burned up in the PSC Simpson volt-ohmmeter. No wonder we couldn’t get it to work. Wrote to Weston Elec. Instrument Company to see if the Model 301 meter we have can be used as a VU meter. From some of Fred’s Weston paperwork, it can be.
Rode home w/ Mike Bavaro.
Friday, 08 March, 1963
Drove back up to the Haleakala National Park Hq to get some of their booklets.
Left on the 2 PM plane for Honolulu.
Some clouds
Got up about 9 AM after a restless night as I couldn’t get warm. About 0600 I found 3 windows open over my head, so slept a little after that.
Drove back up to the Park Hq and picked up some of their booklets.
Went back down the mountain to Wailuku and to the Iao valley to see the Needle — it is spectacular, rising out of the little valley or canyon that has almost vertical walls.
Ret’d to Honolulu on the 2 PM plane. If I had enough of a cash reserve, I would have stayed another day.
Did a little shopping at the Ala Moana — couldn’t get my Light meter case sewed.
Sent a number of cards & turned in early.
Thursday, 07 March, 1963
Left Kwaj at 0820 after Bob Brown picked me up at 0645. Bruce Wherli took my ticket over as well as the B4 bag. Arrived around 8 PM at Honolulu.
Went over to the Islander Hotel and checked in.
———–
Went over to Maui via Hawaiian Airlines, arriving about 11 AM. After sending some postcards, I rented a Datsun Bluebird and went up to the Smithsonian Satellite Tracking Station at the Haleakela Crater. Dorik Mechau, the young chap Aubrey Stinnett referred me to showed me around the station and we talked for about 2 hours.
After taking some pictures, I drove down to the Silversword Lodge for the night — at 3300 feet elevation.
1/2 OC
Left Kwaj at 0820.
Prof. Brown took me over to the air terminal after breakfast, Bruce Wherli took of my B4 bag, shot card, & ticket — a most accommodating gesture. At breakfast we met 4 chaps who arrived yesterday from L2 — can’t recall the names!
Newly promoted Army Major Baker, wife, 6 children (!) and grandmother are on the a/c, plus 3 others in addition to myself. Flying time to Honolulu is about 10-1/2 hours; with the time change of 2 hours, we are to arrive there about 8:40 PM.
Arrived about 7:55 PM. Went in to town with the others for $1.50 each. I checked in at the Islander, 400 Seaside about 9 PM, showered and went to bed.
Paid $23.10 duty on $154 of photo goods — 15%. I declared $326.55 worth of merchandise.
———–
Some clouds
Picked up 2 Nikon cassettes at Hata’s Photo Shop, 2080 Kalakaua Ave., Waikiki (Hono 15) 913095: they were $1.50 each.
Obtained space on PAA 812, 9 March for LA.
Was not able to get LCH on the phone; tried at 0900; she was at school.
Called Bill Miller at Hq. Mt. Wilson Observatories, making an appointment for 0930 Monday Morning.
The Travel Desk at the Seaside made arrangements for PAA 812 on 9 March.
Left at 1050 for Maui on HAL 810. On arriving, sent some postcards and rented a Datsun Bluebird — it’s cream colored. After driving around Kahalui went up to the Smithsonian Satellite Tracking Station at 10,000 ft. elevation. Spent a pleasant 1-1/2 hours with Dorik Mechau. See other diary. Started down a little after 4 PM, stopping frequently for pictures. Was unable to get one of the ring-neck pheasant. There are many of these handsome birds. Stopped at the Hosmer Grove — many, varied trees planted in 1910-11 by Forestry Supt. of the Territory to see if any would produce any merchantable timber. Some did. Many birds were in the grove, too many away up in the eucalyptus, too far away to see. Did see an immature Apapane.