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: Dresden, Germany

July 1944

14 September 1944, Thursday afternoon: In the evening, without having heard or read the reports herself, Eva came home with the [contents of] the latest bulletins: In the German military bulletin: English attack on Aachen; in the English one: in the course of the attack on Trier, the German frontier crossed on a 22-mile front. A new offensive is also said to be under way in the East. — The fact that the enemy is on German soil will make a tremendous impression. … In the cellar, Neumark had an old copy of the DAZ, which he had found by chance and which included a page summarizing the events of 1943.

In February 1943, the fall of Stalingrad; in the spring, the Führer holds discussions with the King of Bulgaria, with Antonescu—Count Ciano is appointed Italian ambassador to the Vatican… What an impression it all made on us! Ciano shot, Bulgaria and Romania changing sides, Stalingrad as remote as a fairy tale… But something else made a greater impression on us—it was the same for both Neumark and myself: the impotence of memory to fix all that we had so painfully experienced in time.

When—insofar as we remembered it at all—had this or that happened, when had it been? Only a few facts stick in the mind, dates not at all. One is overwhelmed by the present, time is not divided up, everything is infinitely long ago, everything is infinitely long in coming; there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, only an eternity. And that is yet another reason one knows nothing of the history one has experienced: The sense of time has been abolished; one is at once too blunted and too overexcited, one is crammed full of the present. The chain of disappointments also unfolded in front of me again.

[…] Ever since Stalingrad, since the beginning of ’43 therefore, I have been waiting for the end. I remember asking Eva at the time: Do you think it is a defeat, or do you consider it to be the defeat, the catastrophe? That was in February ’43. Then I had not yet done any factory duty. After that, I was a factory slave for fourteen months. And now it is almost three months since I was released, three months in which I find it ever more difficult to wrest useful work from my so-called free days.

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.
posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

The Language of the Third Reich – Klemperer

Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all.

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.
  • Weaponization of Language: Euphemisms and politicized terms are used to obscure truth or polarize discussions.
  • Power of Repetition: Repeated slogans and phrases reinforce ideologies, even when oversimplified or misleading.
  • Language of Division: Dehumanizing or exclusionary language fosters conflict and “us vs. them” mentalities.
  • Emotional Manipulation: Fear, pride, and resentment are evoked to sway opinions and shut down rational debate.
  • Media and Authority Vigilance: Pervasive bias and mistrust in institutions highlight the need for critical thinking and media literacy.
posted
  • place: Colorado

Case Study: The Big One

It has been well over a century since “The Big One”: Colorado’s largest historic earthquake that occurred on 7 November 1882 – Magnitude 6.6.

On Tuesday, 7 November 1882 at about 6:30 p.m. local Denver time, a moderately strong earthquake shook much of Colorado, along with parts of southern Wyoming and northeastern Utah. The following quote from the Rocky Mountain News gives an indication of the shaking in Denver, 60 miles (100 km) from the approximate epicenter.

A general stampede was caused among the employees of The News office, especially in the editorial rooms. The editors and reporters were seated engaged at work when the floors of the editorial rooms began to tremble violently. … for a short time it appeared as if the building was about to tumble in.

— Rocky Mountain News, November 8, 1882

The shaking was so great in Denver that it broke the electrical generators loose from their mounts and knocked out power. The earthquake was apparently felt as far east as Salina, Kansas and perhaps even in Plattsmouth, Nebraska (Rockwood, 1883; Oaks and Kirkham, 1986); and as far west as Salt Lake City.

The earthquake Tuesday evening not only created a sensation but did some damage. It was observed by a few pedestrians who were not particularly interested in the election returns that the electric lights were suddenly extinguished at half past 6. Among the observers was Superintendent Runkle. He went immediately to the electric light building at the foot of Twenty-first street and found that an accident had occurred to the machinery. From the driving pulley of engine there is a connection of shafting five inches in diameter and divided into sections of 12 feet. These sections are connected by large iron bolt screws nearly an inch in diameter. At the instant of the earthquake shock one of those bolts was snapped in twain and the other bent out of shape. The whole machinery was thrown out of gear, and it became necessary to stop the machinery at once. Mr. Runkle is of the opinion that the upheaval which caused the earthquake ran east and west and centered about his establishment and the residency of Mr. Birke Cornforth. It was ascertained yesterday that the shock was so severe in the northern portion of the city that many families ran from their houses.

— The Denver Tribune, November 8, 1882

An aftershock followed on the morning of November 8 and was felt in Denver, Boulder, Greeley, Laramie, and near Meeker. The main event was the largest earthquake to occur in the Colorado region during the historical period (1867-present) and has been the object of considerable study by numerous researchers. Heck (1928) reported the felt area—that is, the total area where credible reports of ‘felt’ earthquake movement and its direct effects were made—as 11,000 mi2 (28,000 km2). Hadsell (1968), as part of the investigation of the earthquakes at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, conducted the first extensive evaluation of this event. Hadsell concluded the earthquake may have been centered north of Denver and east of Boulder, had maximum intensity of VII, and was ML (local magnitude scale) 5.0 ± 0.6 based on the maximum observed intensity or ML 6.7 ± 0.6 based on its circular felt area of just under 460,000 mi2 (1,200,000 km2).
more “Case Study: The Big One”

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

Stamped from the Beginning – Kendi

Continuing to pry my eyes open to the wide ignorance of growing up a privileged white male: a darkness that perhaps could have been dispelled by the obvious evidence appearing, bright, over the years. The tar-paper huts where the elementary school bus stopped, picking up many of the Black students at our rural Maryland school 35 miles outside of Washington, D.C.—south of the Mason-Dixon Line; at ten y.o., riding past “Resurrection City” on the Mall in D.C. during the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968; completely unaware of the geography of roads not taken in that long-ago rural countryside as they passed through the African-American settlements outside of the “regular” towns; blindness mixed with a slowly maturing wonder at and deep respect for African-American creativity, intelligence, and sensitivity. I surely didn’t understand the full import of the lyrics in Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” from his Innervisions album even after doing a report on it in 11th grade English class; nor the complexities involved in a course I took, “The Economics of Poverty,” while taking a year away from engineering school back in 1979. Maybe it was Lightnin’ Hopkins who really cracked open my soul. So many points where knowledge and feeling would have fired a deeper awareness of the ongoing and severely compromised conditions of social justice in the United States. There was not enough curiosity available within privilege.

Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Second trade paperback edition. New York, NY: Bold Type Books, LLC, 2023.

Tracing the historical roots of ‘racist thought’ in Amurika up to contemporary times, this is a challenging read. The extraordinary level of detail and huge number of players across 400 years makes it sometimes difficult to hold onto all the facts. But the main ‘plot,’ racism, is the important point to be dissembled.

Thanks, George, for recommending this one, and thanks, Rick for earlier recommending:

Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Trade paperback edition. New York, NY: Random House, 2023.

and I would also include

Hannah-Jones, Nikole and New York Times Company, eds. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. First edition. New York, NY: One World, 2021.

and

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston, MA: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845..

There are (many) Others whose histories I need yet to understand.

To Phyliss Wheatley
(First African Poetess)

No! Not like the lark, didst thou circle and sing,
High in the heavens on morn’s merry wing,
But hid in the depths of the forest’s dense shade,
There where the homes of the lowly were made,
Thou nested! Though fettered, thou frail child of night,
Thy melody trilled forth with naive delight;
And all through the throes of the night dark and long,
Earth’s favored ones harkened thy ravishing song,
So plaintive and wild, touched with Africa’s lilt;
Of wrong small complaint, sweet forgiveness of guilt-
Oh, a lyric of love and a paean of praise,
Didst thou at thy vespers, Dark Nightingale, raise;
So sweet was the hymn rippling out of the dark,
It rivalled the clear morning song of the lark.

Clifford, Carrie Williams. The Widening Light. Boston, MA: Walter Reid Company, 1922.
posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

any landscape …

Chicago Lake, Colorado, from Hayden, Ferdinand Vandeveer. “Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories: Embracing Colorado and Parts of Adjacent Territories; Being a Report of Progress of the Exploration for the Year 1874.” Washington, DC: US Geological Survey, 1876.
Chicago Lake, Colorado, from Hayden’s “Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories: Embracing Colorado and Parts of Adjacent Territories; Being a Report of Progress of the Exploration for the Year 1874.” Washington, DC: US Geological Survey, 1876.

Any landscape is so dense with evidence and so complex and cryptic that we can never be assured that we have read it all or read it aright. The landscape lies all around us, ever accessible and inexhaustible. Anyone can look, but we all need to see that it is at once a panorama, a composition, a palimpsest, a microcosm; that in every prospect there can be more and more that meets the eye.

Meinig, Donald W., and John Brinckerhoff Jackson, eds. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Meinig’s allusion to holistic natural systems is quoted in an essay and exhibition on the historical “Drawings of the Great Colorado Survey”:

Huber, Thomas P. Hayden’s Landscapes Revisited: The Drawings of the Great Colorado Survey. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2016.

James Miller‘s concept of “living systems” emphasizes that all such systems—from cells to landscapes to societies—share common scale-independent patterns of organization and processes as well as divergent features. As initially articulated in an editorial by Miller in 1956 in the then-new journal Behavorial Science:

Our present thinking-which may alter with time-is that a general theory will deal with structural and behavioral properties of systems. The diversity of systems is great. The molecule, the cell, the organ, the individual, the group, the society are all examples of systems. Besides differing in the level of organization, systems differ in many other crucial respects. They may he living, nonliving, or mixed; material or conceptual; and so forth.

Miller, James Grier. “Editorial.” Behavioral Science 1, no. 1 (January 17, 2007): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1002/bs.3830010102.

In the context of landscapes, this approach aligns with systems thinking by focusing on how ecosystems, organisms, and human activities interact within larger networks, and are themselves comprised of smaller and smaller networks. A landscape may be seen as a living system with a complex of nested subsystems, where elements like nutrient cycles, energy flows, and information exchanges are interconnected. These interactions contribute to emergent properties and systemic behaviors, underscoring the need to consider the whole landscape when analyzing environmental changes and implementing management strategies. Augmenting or supplanting those more empirical methods, we believe that artistic, creative, imaginative, embodied, and other refined sensory-based processes can very effectively address and engage not only the astounding complexity, but the raw and inspiring beauty of these systems. Key to what may be a singular holistic ‘understanding’ of a landscape is focused and sustained observation that is aware of the scalar similarities and differences.

The original Hayden report from 1876:

Hayden, Ferdinand Vandeveer. “Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories: Embracing Colorado and Parts of Adjacent Territories; Being a Report of Progress of the Exploration for the Year 1874.” Washington, DC: US Geological Survey, 1876.

Hayden recognized the profound value of William Henry Holmes‘ drawings, though he did not formally recognize the other artists who produced documentary drawings on the expeditions, He reserved most of his praise for William Henry Jackson, the photographer who documented so expansively the landscapes of the American West setting the creative precedent for the likes of Ansel Adams, Richard Misrach, Robert Adams, Willy Sutton, and the many others who followed.

posted
  • place: Washington, D.C.

Appendix 8: The Systems Process

[Ed: this document was written by Cleveland Hopkins as an addenda to an unidentified white paper produced in the early 1970s at the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP) — a White House office dedicated to policy-making in a rapidly shifting telecom environment. It is meant as an introduction to the concept of the systems process for those unfamiliar with the approach. Cleveland Hopkins was involved as a Systems Analyst looking at USPS electronic mail-handling; international and domestic telecom policy; digital medical record-keeping in the context of universal health care, among many other projects. His early career included twenty years in weapons system development (radar and ICBM) with DOD and MITs Lincoln Laboratory and Radiation Lab (Rad Lab) among other organizations. See his obit for further information.]

APPENDIX 8: The Systems Process

It is the objective of this short paper to invite attention to the Systems Process, its concepts, its essential nature, limitations and capabilities, and its output.

Introduction

“The systems approach basically applies scientific methods to the solution of practical problems,” [1], Concepts of the systems process vary from regarding it as the most powerful intellectual tool ever devised to “…the vacuous systems approach…” Historically, some of these ideas were applied to the activity used during World War II by small groups of people in trying to solve problems that were beyond the capacity of one person in the available time; these initial applications were to radar matters involved in the defense of Britain. Larger business firms have used such a process for many years to pool the efforts of management to subsequently maintain or improve their profit margins. The process began to get widespread public recognition shortly after Robert S. McNamara became Secretary of Defense; he brought in a group of technical people, later called the “Whiz Kids“ by the military, who, after some effort were able to break up the massive military problems into pieces that could be profitably worked on by individuals of different professional backgrounds. Their results were then combined and modified by operational people so that the solutions were relevant to the real world. Some duplication was taken out of the military services, and great efforts were made to obtain maximum results for the money spent, giving rise to cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness schemes.

more “Appendix 8: The Systems Process”

posted
  • place: Arcata, California

Judge George W. Hopkins

Judge George W. Hopkins, the subject of the following sketch, was born in Hampshire, on June 18, 1827. His father was a shoemaker, and was married in June, 1826. The family lived in Hampshire until the summer of 1834, when they came over to Dresden, Muskingan County, Ohio, and engaged in farming. In November, 1841, they moved to Osage County, Missouri, where they again engaged in farming. His parents being in poor circumstances, financially, Mr. Hopkins had the benefit of only six weeks schooling, but improved every opportunity to study at home of evenings, and his life was thus spent from his tenth to his twentieth year.

At eighteen he had begun to read law, working on the farm in summer and teaching school in winter, to keep the pot boiling. He was admitted to the bar at Lima, Osage county, January 9, 1854, by George W. Miller, judge of the First Judicial Circuit, Missouri. His life work has been in the legal profession, with the exception of three years military service during the war. He has held many official positions of trust, honor and responsibility. Was public administrator of Osage county for four years, swamp-land commissioner eight years, prosecuting attorney for three years, and acted as assistant prosecuting attorney for two years in a circuit of four counties.

He came to Arcata in the spring of 1877, and was admitted to the bar by Judge Haynes in June of that year. His family arrived the following year. In Humboldt County he has held the office of justice of the peace for thirteen years and still holds the same office, and is still practicing in the Superior Court.

Judge Hopkins has been a member of the I.O.O.F. for fourteen years, a Mason forty-one years, a Good Templar four years, Sons of Temperance ten years, and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, and of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was N.G. of I.O.O.F. two terms, W.M. of Masons two years, Deputy W.C.T. three years, also Dept. Worthy Patriarch, Sons of Temperance; is Senior Past Commander of Cold Harbor Post 132, G.A.R., and is now Junior Vice Department Commander of the California G.A.R.; was special aide on staff of Commander in Chief, G.A.R., for one year.

Turning to his military record, we find that his executive ability was constantly receiving recognition in the way of numerous official duties to perform. He was Adjutant of the 28th Regiment, Missouri Militia; enrolling officer, with rank of Captain, for one year; also one year in the Secret Service, with rank of Captain, Lieutenant and Recruiting Officer, and First Lieutenant of Company F, 48th Missouri Infantry, and served as Captain in that regiment until the close of the war. In 1862 he was assistant Provost Marshal for Osage County, Missouri, the State being then under martial law. Judge Hopkins was married in 1854, on November 16th, and has had six children, four of whom are living. The foregoing is but a meager outline of the leading details of a very busy life, and it is with regret that the limitation of space compels us to so briefly sketch a career which contains abundant material for a very interesting and instructive volume. Judge Hopkins devotes his time to his law practice in this county, also to a general real estate business and collection agency.

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

Full dissertation text: The Regime of Amplification

Well, I guess it’s about time to put the PhD dissertation text out there in .pdf form, so, here it is (PDF download):

The Regime of Amplification

Have at it, be polite, no grabbing, pushing, or shoving. Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. If you can prove that you’ve read it back to front, I’ll buy you a bottle of Herradura Añejo Tequila*, as long as we can split it!

*this is my hard liquor drink of choice since 1980 when it was hard to find even in the US southwest — cherished bottles imported into Iceland (bought in NYC at NY Liquors on Canal Street, the only place in NYC that carried it!) would last up to six months, like a fine Scottish whiskey, small glasses for sipping — none of that brutish slugging down shots or making margaritas with this fine distillate.

posted
  • place: Millers Point, NSW, Australia

die Mauer

Gah, it was twenty-five years ago (today) … seems I was busy, very busy in 1989. In August, Stefan, Debra, Magga and I headed for Kassel from Köln and then on to Berlin. Through the huge Charlottenburg checkpoint, past the Soviet tanks, after the surreal drive on the lousy autobahn where, if you stopped the car, you could be shot. We had a nice flat somewhere in the West, don’t recall where in the Western Sector, a friend-of-a-friends. We entered the East through Checkpoint Charlie for a long day which started out at the Soviet Culture Center, went on to a impromptu visit with a photographer, Micha Brendel, (who I learned of from my gallerist in Lyon, France, Raymond Viallon — and whose work resonates with the presence of the Stasi State) and finally ended up at a youth music festival somewhere up the Spree on an island. The high-point was trying to find food to eat and only locating one restaurant where, of the handful of items on the menu, they had only one. Much more could be said, but I just want to the get the images up (a couple days too late, but).

Earlier that summer I had noticed several things—the first was the not-insignificant fact that the super-sonic overflights by the US military along the Eifel region (and Köln) had ceased since the previous summer when one would hear them on a regular basis. Germany had reclaimed its airspace from the occupying power. And secondly—easily as profound as Reagan’s tear down this wall Mr. Gorbachev! stunt—I saw, but regretfully did not document, posters in the Vienna underground featuring Mr. Gorbachev in his fedora and heavy winter coat with a hand raised, palm facing outwards, and the simple text Lay Down Your Arms!. As far as I noticed, there was no other text or attribution, and I did not remark about it to my friends who I was visiting. I thought to myself—this is profound, and more profound things are on the way. My German friends would not accept the idea that a major paradigm shift was on the way. I was not surprised in November 1989 when it happened!

posted
  • place: Hasselt, Belgium

The Hybrid: This and/or That

1 The Hybrid: This and/or That

2 Abstract: This text is a meditation on the concept of hybridity and hybridization as a construct of our techno-social system that attempts to safely frame (chaotic change) at the same time as to be a creative source.

3 Keywords: bifurcation, schizophrenia, catalysis, difference, gradient, edge, reaction, culture, change, innovation, control, systems

4 Introduction:

4.1 What happens when two things come together? What happens when two energies come together?  In certain situations there can be a catalytic response which allows the two disparate systems or impulses to encounter and change each other with gusto. In other situations the two systems retain their essential character and apparently do not mix, merely coming into separate relation or juxtaposition with one another. Why do humans bring things together? Why is life combinatorial and synergistic? Recognizing the expanse of territory posed by these questions, as well as the main thematic question proposed at the Hybrid Space workshop “How does art create, visualize and network hybrid spaces,” this essay will not attempt to provide answers, but rather will plot a simple course through some ideas and reflections on what may be the foundations that the questions rest upon.
more “The Hybrid: This and/or That”

posted

Jaromil’s Law

Long story short — with trolls on the bricolabs list, Jaromil suggests:

You see: if you want to create an un/common ground of discussion among very different people, minimalism is your friend. So to say, keep your shit together. :^)

‘nuf said.

But the whole issue goes back to language. sotto voce:

Yes, the existence of a shared protocol within a social system (community, network) is a strange necessity that is demanding that we comply and yet provides the (only!) possible conduit for connection. This goes for English as it goes for IP (Internet Protocol) and for the metric system. All function similarly to control us and our expressive energies in specific ways, pathways. There is no connection without some kind of such protocol. Some are more flexible and forgiving than others that are rigid and very *unforgiving* while at the same time, flexibility carries the risk of mis-communication. This presents us always with a paradox.

And, yes, perhaps I have a bit more restricted (but also deeper) understanding of English, as a native speaker. But having lived in second-language situations most of my adult life, when I am in such a situation, I always give respect to the fact when others are using ‘my’ protocol, as I hope is returned when I am using theirs.

Whenever a new protocol is picked up to be used, the user should be aware that great damage may easily occur (in the communicative act) when the protocol is not used ‘correctly.’

History is littered with the bloody results of such mis-understandings!

If the Battles of Trafalgar and of Cape St Vincent had gone differently, indeed we would not be mostly speaking English on this list. Pero la vida es un camino extraño, eh?

posted

a day at the mines

current tailings in Vindicator Valley, Victor, Colorado, September 2011

An afternoon drive/ramble with Karen and a couple of her friends over to Victor, Colorado, not far from (above!) Cripple Creek to the (AngloGold Ashanti) Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine area. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on-location at a major extractives scene. My god. At one point I counted more than 25 250-ton dump trucks operating within sight. We toured the abandoned mining area first — the “Vindicator Valley” trail — then went to several overlooks to see the current tailings dump area and then the open pit which is over a mile across and about 1000 feet deep. After a break at Kathy’s Kitchen in downtown Victor, we stop by the old Sunnyside Cemetery which sits below the cyanide leach field for the Ashanti mine. Back at the cabin, Ron whipped up a great dinner (even though I am not a huge fan of steak, it was great, though a bit much to make it through!).

posted
  • place: Preston, VIC, Australia

hmmm?

Responding to Felipe’s thread on the bricolabs list:

Obviously, I’m not asking how serious lixoeletronico.org people are, because I’m one of them :P I meant the companies who say they are not using gold, coltan, tungsten etc any more.

sotto voce: If you want to dig (no pun intended) into this more, I’d highly recommend this audio/video panel at the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

https://csis.org/event/rare-earth-elements

It’s a good in-depth intro to this issue by a panel of three experts who look at the contemporary situation with rare earth elements (which do not include niobium and tantalum from coltan deposits). But it is basically the same idea/situation — in the sense of there being a rare resource, in demand by a multiplicity of large forces/powers, in places where local people are considered to be disposable commodities.

(I am not promoting their opinions, but they do describe the situation well from their point of view, both historical and today’s view)…

I believe it is worth it to consider the principle, not the details, in these areas of activism, as EVERY material that the techno-social system uses for re-forming matter causes a similar distortion of localized systems: That is, look around your home, what’s made out of metal, plastic, chemicals, paper, wood… etc etc, it all requires machines to make which require more metals, plastics, chemicals, etc. etc… which make necessary the entire range of the global extractives industry which is closely allied to WAR (of every kind — both aggressive overt weapons war as well as slow and equally deadly environmental degradation warfare).

Humans do this. It is not avoidable. The only factor that we have the power to influence is *how much* we use — of course, this *how much* does imply choosing one type of device over another. It also places the choice directly in our power. We can make choices, we can influence others to make choices. But as long as this discussion proceeds here on this (telecom-based) mailing list, we are being somewhat hypocritical. Of course, educating each other is paramount, but the best teaching methodology is to ‘practice what one preaches.’ Which puts us squarely in a very problematic position of having to implement radical change in our tele- lived lives or else continue to support large portions of this global system.

If you want to stop mining, then you have to stop telecommunications. You have to go back to an industrial base before rare earths and coltan were discovered and rendered fit for use. (1800 were the first discoveries, but little use came before the beginning of the 20th Century).

Otherwise, this process will simply continue and expand, along with demand, and along with all the horrific effects that the human struggle for control of resources entails everywhere…

hmmm. god that sounds bleak. sorry, but from this materialist approach to global problems, there are no solutions. It would seem that a Buddhist approach which posits that *all is change* and to try to grasp and manipulate or put off change is a futile process. We must simply move through this incarnation and while treating each other as best as we can, not get caught up in the grasping at illusion…

I don’t know. (I type on my laptop and stare at the letters string themselves across the screen…)

posted
  • place: South Acton, Massachusetts

Wednesday, 19 April, 1961

— Patriots Day —

Cold 20-35°!
Windy

Met with Boy Scouts and others of Acton at the Isaac Davis House at 0600 for Acton ceremonies prior to marching to Concord over the old trail or road taken by the Minute Men 186 years ago. Boy & Girl Scouts mass at the bridge & statue in Concord. National Guard units, the Governor or Massachusetts, and other dignitaries were there prior to a parade into Concord Center about 11 AM.

Had 60 from the Fellowship at church in for dinner; they were all in and around the living room for the Alaska Movie. A punch bowl was given to Mr. & Mrs. Marshall, who later gave the devotional.

posted
  • place: Preston, Victoria, Australia

word pressing

Groggy. Rolling over historical entries, slowly whittling down the 1900-plus entries from the original travelog. This is the fourth incarnation of some of the earliest posts. The original form of the travelog was single long html pages, added incrementally over time. The second form was using frames for navigation. The third form was (is) the hybrid html/php blog platform that was implemented in 2004. Now, finally (!?!) this migration to this WordPress platform. Maybe this will be the last, eh? The site here is due for a more or less continuous expansion of content, following the completion of scans of 30 years of negatives, and other archival threads of audio, video, text, and image content. How life gets tied into this process is something of a mystery. So it goes.

posted
  • author: Eric Kluitenberg
  • place: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Distance versus Desire :: Clearing the ElectroSmog

The desire to transcend distance and separation has accompanied the history of media technology for many centuries. Various attempts to realize the demand for a presence from a distance have produced beautiful imaginaries such as those of tele-presence and ubiquity, the electronic cottage and the re-invigoration of the oikos, and certainly not least among them the reduction of physical mobility in favor of an ecologically more sustainable connected life style. As current systems of hyper-mobility are confronted with an unfolding energy crisis and collide with severe ecological limits – most prominently in the intense debate on global warming – citizens and organizations in advanced and emerging economies alike are forced to reconsider one of the most daring projects of the information age: that a radical reduction of physical mobility is possible through the use of advanced tele-presence technologies.

ElectroSmog and the quest for a sustainable immobility

The ElectroSmog festival for sustainable immobility, staged in March 2010 [1], was both an exploration of this grand promise of tele-presence and a radical attempt to create a new form of public meeting across the globe in real-time. ElectroSmog tried to break with traditional conventions of staging international public festivals and conferences through a set of simple rules: No presenter was allowed to travel across their own regional boundaries to join in any of the public events of the festival, while each event should always be organized in two or more locations at the same time. To enable the traditional functions of a public festival, conversation, encounter, and performance, physical meetings across geographical divides therefore had to be replaced by mediated encounters.

The festival was organized at a moment when internet-based techniques of tele-connection, video-telephony, visual multi-user on-line environments, live streams, and various forms of real-time text interfaces had become available for the general public, virtually around the globe. No longer an object of futurology ElectroSmog tried to establish the new critical uses that could be developed with these every day life technologies, especially the new breeds of real-time technologies. The main question here was if a new form of public assembly could emerge from the new distributed space-time configurations that had been the object of heated debates already for so many years?
more “Distance versus Desire :: Clearing the ElectroSmog”

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the leisure class … (at 11.11.10, 11:11)

The erection of class/caste protocols (another harsh historical judgment in the midst of the industrial age):

Entrance into the leisure class lies through the pecuniary employments, and these employments, by selection and adaptation, act to admit to the upper levels only those lines of descent that are pecuniarily fit to survive under the predatory test. And so soon as a case of reversion to non-predatory human nature shows itself on these upper levels, it is commonly weeded out and thrown back to the lower pecuniary levels. In order to hold its place in the class, a stock must have the pecuniary temperament; otherwise its fortune would be dissipated and it would presently lose caste. Instances of this kind are sufficiently frequent. The constituency of the leisure class is kept up by a continual selective process, whereby the individuals and lines of descent that are eminently fitted for an aggressive pecuniary competition are withdraw from the lower classes. In order to reach the upper levels the aspirant must have, not only a fair average complement of the pecuniary aptitudes, but he must have these gifts in such an eminent degree as to overcome very material difficulties that stand in the way of his ascent. Barring accidents, the nouveaux arrivés are a picked body. more “the leisure class … (at 11.11.10, 11:11)”

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Wanderlust

I kept coming back to this route for respite from my work, and for my work too, because thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture, and doing nothing is hard to do. It’s best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking. Walking itself is the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart. It strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing. It is a bodily labor that produces nothing but thoughts, experiences, arrivals. — Rebecca Solnit

Solnit, Rebecca (2000). Wanderlust: A History of Walking. New York: Penguin Books.

It’s hard to brightly imagine that when we decide to retreat to the desert or to the mountains to walk, it is a process deeply colored and, literally, in/de-formed by relatively recent cultural contingency.

The retreat is steeped in a socially constructed reality that began to emerge around William Wordsworth and J. J. Rousseau’s time and was sparked, in part, by their actual perambulations and especially the writings that welled-up whilst they were on the road (The Excursion, by Wordsworth, for example, and Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker).

But in a completely different sense, walking (and be-ing while walking) is ahistoric. Because the present moment is never to be repeated, nor is a life-time to happen twice, the momentary events of that particular movement are unique, and uniquely inspiring. Embodied movement is a passage through the flux of difference, regardless of the pathway. And although I cannot anymore go to the delicious extremes of span and height and endurance that so many others have done and will do, it is not extremity that brings the timeless essence of movement. When all is change, the senses are taught to discern the minute difference of the everyday, ever more. In this, the near becomes just as exotic and inspiring as the far and less reachable places.

posted
  • place: Ultimo, NSW, Australia

the fluidity of leaking

What could better illustrate the instability of protocol-driven social control systems than the phenomenon of a leak? Springing a leak is an irruption through a human-constructed wall (hull) holding back the chaotic flows of the sea. Wikileaks is a reversal of that, where the leak is from the inside of the ship-of-State to the outside. Where inside there are protocol-defined pathways of State-driven communication flow filling a space of partially-stabilized human endeavor. Every so often, one of the nodes of State communication goes rogue, mad, AWOL, counter, and defies the standing protocols by whatever means possible. Opening the mouth and speaking, telling the secrets of State, a yawning vomit of bilge over the sides: merely seasick.

The hull of the ship of State exists across a multi-dimensional space of refined/defined energy flow. Defined energy flow resists change and promotes continuance. Regarding the State, protocol controls individual behavior through internalized patterns of embodied thought. The State seeks any possible way to apply these internal protocols, and is successful if those ways promote the existence of the necessary flow pathways that insure the continuance of the structure of the State. The more rigid the expectations of the State, the more necessary the adherence to prescribed protocols (and vice versa). The State also applies controls to patterns of energy flow external to the body. These two (internal and external) sets of controls are not separate but rather are united in the space of flow to effect more-or-less total control on the participant and the crew of the ship of State. more “the fluidity of leaking”

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From The Regime of Amplification to The Road

[editor: this document was used for a mid-way doctoral assessment at the University of Technology Sydney and no longer reflects the final content of the PhD dissertation as of the April 2012 submission at La Trobe University in Melbourne. The presentation was accompanied by the video that is posted at the end.]

Abstract

The DCA project “The Road” is a psycho-geographic perambulation through a web of personal, social, and universal trajectories which form a new knowledge-base on the cosmos as an entropic system of energy flows. Within this worldview the project explores human presence, encounter, and interaction including a close look at the effects of techno-socially prescribed protocols on those indeterminate flows of energy. As a multi-modal online data-space, the project offers a variety of navigational strategies connecting a rich variety of audio, video, text, and image sources from the candidate’s extensive personal archive of creative material.

Introduction

The armature for this DCA as originally proposed was the concept of the amplifier. An amplifier is essentially a device that takes an incoming flow of energy (signal), and through an influx of power, generates a defined outflow of energy with a greater (directed) intensity. The amplification process needs an independent energy source to increase the signal strength. It also requires a set of protocols that guide the flow of energy from input through output: a coherent signal is a controlled energy flow as defined by applied protocols.

The road, as an expression of a techno-social system (TSS), exemplifies, or, more precisely, is one of these protocol-defined pathways. It was this realization during the last year of research which shifted my focus from the amplifier to the road as both a real and metaphoric concept that opens a rich space for inquiry. The road allows the TSS to express amplified energy flows along its protocol-defined pathway. It is not difficult to conceptually extend the idea of the road as any pathway for the directed and concentrated expression of energy of a TSS. more “From The Regime of Amplification to The Road”

posted
  • place: enroute - Dinosaur National Monument - Grand Junction - Glade Park, Colorado

leaving and heading south

leaving Echo Park, Colorado, May 2010

Leaving when done with breakfast and cleaning and packing. A couple rituals yet — gathering some sage and some yellow Weber sandstone powder. A beautiful sojourn. The place is so rich, so un-circumscribable, no matter how many dances of words one would make around it. Best is the ability to press into the body the power of be-ing and the power of life. And Light. And the gravity of the earth. Fundamentals to the heart. The drift of cloud and shift of wider weather patterns, leaving Light on upturned face, changing all the time.

Maybe put out a call next spring to have others join. Then again, maybe not…
more “leaving and heading south”

posted
  • place: Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado

western terminus Yampa Bench

west terminus of Yampa Bench at the Chew Ranch, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado, May 2010

Sleep difficult, not sure why, whether simple discomfort, though the back of the truck seems very comfortable in the immediate impression, warm, soft enough, but body cannot find a comfortable position, side to side, somehow, problems. Could be that yoga hasn’t been happening in the last days. Hiking is a challenge for the body as well.

Drive up to the head of Sand Canyon, intent on doing a hike, but what looks like bad weather coming in, a heavy front across the whole west, sends me back after a short recon along the Bench Road. It seems doable as an alternative escape route, if this end is the worst, though, in wet conditions, forget it. And it totals thirty miles to Elk Springs, not just the three miles I did on recon. Almost all of it is in the red and yellow (bentonite) clay-sandstone alluvium, and this is precisely this same stuff which sits at the top of the Echo Park Road — from the 2000-foot displacement on the Mitten Park Fault, so, no real solution in heavy and widespread rain. However, this doesn’t seem the case — the rain is sporadic, fast-moving, and interspersed with bright sunshine and the roads are basically still dry after two days of ‘winter storm,’ so fretting about it is a waste of energy. Either I get out on Friday or I don’t and have to wait a few days. Plenty of water, fuel, and food, so that is no problem. The only locked-in point is the flight next Wednesday evening to Portland. But I’d still hate to miss the yurt-raising in Glade Park at Collin and Marisa’s this weekend! more “western terminus Yampa Bench”

posted
  • place: en route Wendover - Gold Hill - Callao - Dugway, Utah

CLUI: Day Thirty-Three — finale

near Callao, Utah, May 2010

Finally depart, making last-minute passes across all the place. Ship-shape, single-wide shape. Good enough for the next artist coming through. Head out by around noon, tired of waiting on the road to Echo Park to open after these repeated waves of late spring storms rolling through. Head south to follow the southern boundary of the Dugway site, through Gold Hill, in that frontier mode, rough, and the mountains have all been dug up, mined out. Some tough looking abodes, apparently there are a few people who live there year-round, it’s gotta be tough. Join the Pony Express Route at Callao, head east to the Wildlife area, windy more or less, mostly more. Callao is really a frontier outpost. About 8-10 ranch families. No store, no gas, no nuthin,’ just the ranches clustered around some arable land at the foot of the spectacular and rugged Deep Creek Mountains (which are higher than the Wasatch in Eastern Utah! The Pony Express Route is an even more strange communications artifact, but one that resonated long in the US imagination, though it lasted only a couple years in actuality — made obsolete by the telegraph cable. But the idea of riding across this landscape in 12-mile spurts (a healthy horse has to stop after that distance when running full-tilt), well, it’s something.

Over-night at the Dugway Geode Mines, pick around a bit in the gathering twiLight, but am pretty tired after the drive. Quiet night, though there are threatening clouds rolling through from time-to-time. It’s always tough to pick a place out there to camp at there are no accessible trees, nor even vegetation above the knees, hardly the ankles! Always have the feeling of being exposed.

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tool-making and control

Nadine's hand, Alsace, France, June 1988

If one constructs a tool, what is one doing, and why is one doing it? How will one do it?

How to control of flows around oneself? And what does this control mean? Where does the desire to control arise from? Is it simply about evolutionary (survival/procreative) pressures? Is there anything about control that is altruistic (or simply outside of the broadly evolutionary imperative)?

The divide between life-forms that make tools and ones that don’t is fundamental, but it may be ignored when regarding the smooth continuum framing life as a system(?) that alters the flows of energy around it generally to its advantage (or to its need to continue — life is about life needing to continue life). The divide then appears to arise only when one considers how (from a mechanistic p.o.v.) that control is exerted.

mine, Bitburg, Germany, July 1988

This divide seems especially arbitrary when the body itself may be seen as a tool. The mechanical relations between bone structures, for example, or the magnifying ability of the lens in the eye. And, extending the definition of tool beyond the purely mechanical to, say, chemical, the body is a clearly a refinery in the exact same sense as a petroleum refinery. It conducts a wide-ranging set of thermodynamically driven reactions to access and distribute concentrated energy sources that it has introduced to its system. While there is a material dividing plane, the skin, which historically looms largely absolute in determining many classifications of relation and order, that plane may also be seen as arbitrary. The surface tissues — including the entire gut and lungs — are highly permeable surfaces which are constantly interchanging matter and energy with the environment they are in. In an optimal sense, at a particular time, this interchange process does not degrade the general order of the biotic system, but it does precipitate localized and systemic change. Also to be considered are the millions of microscopic organisms which synergize with the larger human body system — without which that system would likely not survive.

Andrea, Jersey City, New Jersey, May 1988

Are there, then, distinctions to be made based on body-as-tool and the ‘external’ tool that the body/mind system synthesizes? Or are these distinctions merely artifacts of the entire mechanistic p.o.v.?

It would seem so. If one considers, again, the relations within the body between , say, limb or organ, where a part may be seen as having a particular function which benefits or affects another part. A particular part has a function (as any tool also has) which aids in the performance of the body-system and interacts with other specific mechanisms in the body. In a living body-system these inter-relations are both necessary and sufficient if one includes the those moving between the body and the external. The body is seen as an indivisible whole, but without the constant interactions with the external environment, it would, for practical purposes, dis-integrate immediately.

The point of this short meditation is to emphasize the process which a tool, by definition, precipitates. That process is the fundamental alteration of the energy flows to which the tool is applied. This process unites the purpose of both internal and external systems for energy flow change which may be seen as a tool. The body is a technology as much as anything external to it which causes an alteration of extant energy flows. (Uff, this suggests that life itself be defined as a technology as it always alters the flows around it — we are life, we alter the flows around us, we are a technology.)

The division between tool-makers and those organisms which do not make tools may then be seen as a somewhat arbitrary one. Both organisms are needful of altering the surrounding flows to survive, they actualize that need via evolved mechanisms as they relate with those particular flows. The ultimate point for both internal and external tool use is the optimized continuance of life.

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conduct: opinions and sentiments

Men’s opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blamable, are affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their wishes in regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those which determine their wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their reason — at other times their prejudices or superstitions: often their social affections, not seldom their antisocial ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their desires or fears for themselves — their legitimate or illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority. . . . Where, on the other hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or where its ascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments frequently bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both in act and forbearance which have been enforced by law or opinion, has been the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences or aversions of their temporal masters, or of their gods. This servility though essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it gives rise to perfectly genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and heretics. — John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty”

Yes, definitely, opinion is affected by the directions of the wind. And add to the multifarious causes the role that contemporary media plays in opinion-forming. Counter-pointed by the influence that the controlling figures in those social media structures have — all as a result of the face-time, the attention spent by individuals on those channels of ‘information.’ It is precisely this passivity, or servility, as Mill calls it that forms the kernel of power in every regime or social organization.

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the American Dream is only to survive

David Brooks, columnist at the New York Times writes in this commentary on New Years Day:

Many people seem to be in the middle of a religious crisis of faith. All the gods they believe in — technology, technocracy, centralized government control — have failed them in this instance.

I have always enjoyed his pragmatism and basic awareness of a wider historical context. It frames the American Way as (merely another) expression of a global continuum of human presence on the planet. And he seems largely to avoid the hybridized reli(geo)-political Destiny’s Child(ish) mentality that so pervades the fragmentary remnants of mediated public discourse in this declining nation-state. more “the American Dream is only to survive”

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dipping into Ellul

Morning reading, sparking off Jacques Ellul’s classic, The Technological Society, where he attempts the first comprehensive definition and discussion of technology as something that pervades and underlies social formation(s). He also discusses a distinct relationship between the machine and technology, where the machine is the most important and obvious aspect of technology; where mechanization “transforms everything it touches into a machine;” but where technology is a cumulative way (perhaps expression?) of integration of the machinic into the social fabric, it is represented by a continuous re-formation of the (human) life-form(s) to the techno-social system. Without this impelling force, humans, as simply another evolutionary life-form expression, would not have arrived at where they are in this moment.
more “dipping into Ellul”

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The Military

(extracted and edited from The Regime of Amplification)

The second example — though it is a much more complex combination of pathways in its geo-political and material deployments and in its interaction with the overall continuum of relation — is foundational to the TSS (techno-social system) and is also a prototypical expression of amplification. It is even more a prototype than radio. Radio is merely one sub-system of what is ultimately a military organization.

A military system incorporates all the requisite patterns of an amplification system: input signal (the human population and other concentrated energy sources available to the TSS); amplification process (provisioning and equipping of the select grouping of people through the collective life-energies of the greater population of the TSS); the feedback system (communications, command, and control systems); and the output signal (the expression of amplified (and directed) energy flow as a campaign to secure the viability of the TSS either by offense or defense).
more “The Military”

posted
  • place: Millers Point, NSW, Australia

health care

got to weigh in on health care. so sick(!) of the toxic blather going on within the US, although it might just be that it is a spent nation-state, in the throes of becoming less relevant in the world. clearly it is becoming less functional internally which eventually (already) will have an effect on external relations. morally it is tearing itself apart by those who, strangely call themselves Christian but who seem to have zero compassion and limitless zeal for defending against the stranger and killing preemptively when that stranger seems strange. period. I have some understanding of the fear of governmental authority. the media in the US has certainly inculcated so many other nation-states with the blight of the dictator and illustrated that to the US citizens, a situation that reinforces some traditional/historical fear of the government. fine. more “health care”

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

1992

scanning photos from 1992, mostly moving back in time. from the year that Chris and Nick visited Iceland; the year MB and I got married; and we celebrated the summer solstice at the north end of Hrísey; the year I fell into a geothermal mud pot and sustained 3rd degree burns on both my ankles; the year Loki was born; when I hosted Nan Hoover and her students at the Academy for a few weeks; when I had a huge photo exhibition in France, by far the largest public manifestation of my photographic work ever; the year my parents made a pilgrimage to Ice Land, uh, what else? scanning these hundreds of images dancing around the world, brings a rich intensity to daily life, though at the cost of a certain loss to the ‘be here now.’ I have more time, less money. so I wait for events rather than paying to make them happen. the transition from this blog platform to the new WordPress-based one is really confounding. I cannot yet duplicate features that I have come to enjoy and use frequently (like the randomly loading content), and I find the CSS design base combined with the php coding of WP still too cumbersome for me to control as I would like, it’s almost like being back in straight html coding days, before any WYSWYG editors existed. I did pretty much re-write the canned theme that I ended up using, but there are still too many issues. got the audio plug-ins working and several other items, but more work to be done! it’s interesting, but time-consuming. so, when unsure, I stop producing. thus the three-week break in content. but, the road opens up again in a couple weeks, and that will bring me to a location that I have passed through numerous times, but never have stopped except for gas. about half-way between Washington, D.C., and Golden, Colorado. I used to leave Clarksburg, Maryland, home, at 0500, so would invariably hit St. Louis at rush-hour, Colombia, Missouri another couple hours later, around sunset. and time for a gas stop or maybe a burger before heading on to Kansas City, and the wide, flat, and tiring darkness of Kansas itself. the Big Road.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Happy Birthday Alaska

A quick note on the 50th anniversary of the vote by the US Congress and signing by the then-president, Ike Eisenhower, that made Alaska, the 49th state of the current union of Amurikan states. This is some footage my father shot six weeks before I was born, 30 June 1958, and right after the territorial government passed a bill in the legislature approving the statehood process. The day before my arrival, the people of the Alaska territory confirmed their desire by referendum to become the 49th state on 26 August 1958. The US Congress subsequently passed a statehood bill on 03 January 1959.

posted
  • place: en route Boulder - Colorado Springs, Colorado

heading south

depart from Boulder, gas up in Golden, arrive in good time at Karen and Ron’s place in Colorado Springs. chocolate cookies fresh out of the oven, and cold milk. now that’s a welcome! but what spaces and times to cover. and in between the words, a better understanding of those far-off times. a nice dinner, hanging out, early evening though — they have to get up at 0430 for weekend work at a correctional facility east of Pueblo. but a nice start to re-connecting with an old friend. Karen and I both headed to Colorado in 1976, she to CSU, me to CSM. and only once meeting in Fort Collins at a party in early 1977, then at the 20th reunion in 1976, and today. Light steps across Light years.

posted
  • place: Denver, Colorado

dorkbot303

Jane also organizes a nice Denver dorkbot event along with the Denver Open Media crew live broadcast on community cable channel 57 and on KGNU. she invites me to do an hour talk/presentation on whatever—networking, projects, community activism—live. interesting dynamic, I’ll get a copy of it at some point. Mark Hosler from negativland does the hour after mine. later there is a small party upstairs.

A chaotic night, as it was also Dona’s photo exhibition opening at Sliding Door Gallery, only a block away. Very strange coincidence as I practically never had any engagements in Denver, ever. It was a First Friday street night, and the neighborhood was packed. Very nice to see such civil activities like that in the US, maybe there is a cultural renaissance about to fire up. Maybe in response to the collapse of consumer capitalism in the developed world. Folks had consumed enough of all that consumer crap on credit on loan on mortgage on plastic (now, is that hydrocarbon plastic we’re talking about?).

Dona had some photographic print work along with Camilla Briggs and her organic textile set-pieces. Dona’s images of the Dalai Lama which impressed themselves into works about Light were distracting, perhaps because of his iconic status, but more basically, to have a human form entering the field of radiative holy-ness of Light, well, either redundant or simply not necessary. Or maybe too obvious. Dunno, precise problem can’t be circumscribed without seeing all the images again. Were these stills from a movie? Why not. Fluid seeing. It seemed to miss the regularity of decisive format choices — sizing and positioning. A smaller panoramic cloud sequence, while not astonishing for those of us humans who fling ourselves about in metal tubes high in the air, was moving in its internal brilliance. Abstraction helps to refine expression of aesthetic. Unless the figuration is more personal — the opposite of iconic. Any body would do. Any body is holy enough for Light to play with.

Camilla’s wax-sealed rose petals needed intimacy, something played out right there in the middle of this civilian crowd. they needed to be touched, to be touching the participating humans in the room. the patio behind the gallery was funky.

And, otherwise, I especially enjoyed the DOM folks, lead by Directrice Ann Theis, and their real passion for what they were doing. Haven’t run across that too often—the last time, in Latvia, at the Cultural/Historical Museum dance party in 2001—and especially not among US cultural-industry sector folks. Usually there is a desperation and even irritated defiance in the air.

I was too distracted by observing the social scene and having rather intensive conversations and interactions with others. Very dynamic evening. Enjoyable.

Bravo!

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

negative lands

Sarah invites me to go to a morning pre-screening in the Atlas Center of the movie Speaking in Code along with David and some of the other principles from the Boulder Media Festival. They are considering the flick for screening at the next festival. It’s … okay … funny how historical the scene got so quickly. Ancient times, techno seems.

Right after lunch, I meet Holly at the UMC and we take a wander around campus talking about her options upon graduation from high school this spring. We make a visit to David’s office to talk about the TAM program, etc. it’s cold out, and the art department is now a construction site. I decide to cycle downtown to meet Sarah and Kate later at the Laughing Goat. Then still later, we wander back up to campus to catch negativland who Jane brought to CU for a couple (free!) shows featuring their concentrated and comprehensive performance on the mediated social system of religion in It’s All In Your Head FM.

We believe that the healthy evolution of art and creativity has more value than simply counting how much money is lost or made. Art, science and technology have evolved because of how we all build upon the ideas and works of those who came before us. Copyright was always intended as a balancing act between giving ownership to creators so as to provide incentive to create new works, and allowing works to lapse into the public domain so that new ideas could develop. But our founding fathers could never have imagined the kind of world we live in today and the amazing new technologies that we are surrounded with – technologies that encourage and inspire us to interact with the world and create in unprecedented new ways. Protecting the author of a creative work is a good thing, but the benefits of copyright have been thrown off balance by the disproportionate influence of those with the most money. In fact, the more recent expansions of our nations copyright laws represents a break from our nations past and from the intentions of our own Constitution. — Mark Hosler

Long day, many ideas are danced around. It’s good to see former students so active with things, thoughts, and spirits.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

winter storm

anonymous online life. Plaxo. another online social networking site that makes people look (and feel!) like this… empowered, eh?

winter storm comes, one of those Pacific storms rolling from the west, from California, tracing little rain shadows across the desert. the first wave comes with thunder and dense, dark clouds, air temperature dropping 10 degrees (C). that passes to the east, blackening sky, followed by a double rainbow that plants itself into the scraped earth of the developments on the next range of hills. Granite Mountain is wreathed in scudding shreds of vapor. I can recall the sky four thousand feet lower in the low desert when these storms roll through. but most of all the complete saturation of the air with that wetted-earth smell. everything eight weeks dry. in late summer early fall sunshine.

got overwhelmed by the flood of responses from the class of 1976 regarding the images I finished uploading. maybe people are more nostalgic as times pass. it’s been interesting to hear from folks, though, after all this time. but still nothing solid to comprehend about why memory is so powerful. persistence of recognizing flows. evolutionary, yes. recalling what is dangerous, what is nutritious. but externalized memory, images. as the image-maker, eye hidden behind layers of amorphous silica distortion. seeing. (did I miss high school behind this glass?). am I replaying what was missed?

anyway, a selection of responses, so it goes.

Hi John, I can’t believe you put this all together after all this time. Great job on the photos. What a fabulous collection. It was great fun looking at them. It really took me back. Where do you live now? I still live in Maryland with my husband and son. Our daughter is a senior in college majoring in Biology. I would love to hear from you. Thanks again. God Bless. — Sharon Hill (Warnick)

Hi John, Thanks for the photos. My wife and I always hang out with her friends from high school, here in Los Angeles, and when I hear about how people still hang out with high school friends in Gaithersburg, I always wonder what it would be like to live there and see you all too. My mom and dad still live in the house we lived in when these pictures were taken, but they’re talking about moving now. Getting too old to keep up the house. When they go, my physical connection to Gaithersburg will finally be severed. It’s pictures like yours that keep it all alive for me. Thanks! — Chip Bolcik

john, I really enjoyed the pictures. I am not sure who found my email address, but I was grateful. Think of you often as I have been commuting through Clarksburg, which has gone through changes, as I am sure you have heard. Don’t know if you remember me or not, but wanted to say thanks for the photos. — Debbie Hokanson (Lorenz)

Hi John, Just wanted to thank you for all your hard work getting the photos from high school on your web site. I loved you website and glad you were able to continue with Photography. I’m sure that was time consuming, but certainly worth it. I think That 70’s Show should look at it so they could be more authentic. Hope you make the next reunion. Take care — Sharon Niemann (Hartley)

Absolutely fabulous photos! Had a great time reminiscing. Thanks for sharing! — Karen Harvey (Warnick)

Fantastic job, John! What a fun memory trip for a sunny southwest Florida afternoon. — Susi Martinsen (Sue Merkling)

Dear John… wwwwwwwwwwwooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww YOU HAVE DONE A GREAT JOB!!! I thank u for the time and specially for the devotion… in this wonderful project… — Zulma Urrego

Hey John, Nice job!!! Great memories. Thanks! — John C. Henriksen

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

hmmmmm…

YES! WE CAN!

Lulled to sleep after midnight (well, I was tired and had a migraine) on Monday night by the sounds of John McCain’s last ever presidential campaign rally drifting over the chilly night air from a couple miles away on Courthouse Square. Hank Williams Jr. and the roaring sounds of either people cheering or cars driving by, I couldn’t tell in my sleepy haze. Nor could I manage to get out of bed to mosey down there and document, another missed opportunities.

This region of Arizona is one of the most right-wing of any places in the US, for whatever reasons (historical and economic), and there is rife anger and fear bordering on paranoia among those elements (it’s a Marxist Muslim foreign takeover!). It’s a pity, it’s an illness, and it is not going away.

Don’t forget 62,450,831 to 55,393,194 (with about 98% counted…) represents a difference of only 2.4% of the total population.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

High School & the Élites

finally done with getting 430 images from my senior year at Gaithersburg High School. I was the Photography Editor for the yearbook, and had originally wanted to get all the images up and running for the 30-year reunion, but never made that deadline. the scanning followed by the retouching work was mind-numbing and has been on my To-Do list for these two years as an escape from more important work, yet it never seemed to get finished until last weekend, after getting a nice email from Renee who had stumbled on the images that I did have up, I was determined to finish the damn project.

when do personal histories become interesting? scandal, documentation of publicly shared events, the historical record, curiosity, obsession. where the volume of material becomes overwhelming. nah. it is the compelling character of the narrative. story-telling. no stories here, only images. and notes rattled off after things seen. (guess what I saw?)

and BTW, George has this nice riff in the New Yorker (that, of course, only Élites read, so, hmmm, how’s that?) But he asks the all-important policy questions (largely ignored as we float down the main stream): Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

honeymoon’s over

dredging (scanning) personal archives, negatives unseen until now — 1979, 1989, 1992, 1996, and then far back into pre-histories. an image of my mother taken by my father on their honeymoon in 1945. near Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.

it takes a day for one roll of 36 exposures, and entails multitasking that makes any coherent writing impossible. editing is possible, but not raw writing. and acquiring more digital scans seems vaguely senseless. what to do with all the ones that already are there? sounds, videos, texts, images. when life gets reduced to leaving traces, what then is life? stepping out of life to make a transitory tracing of energies, then stepping out for a longer time to take that tracing and massaging it into something coherent. (what is coherency?) much massage makes mashed potatoes out of some material. monster mash. right back to the archaic world of remix culture which is so incredibly boorish.

posted
  • place: Margaretville, New York

turning centuries

Hurricane Gustav appears to be altering the political process of the late empire. Natural systems biting back. Ultra-left Fundamentalist Christians will claim that it is the LORD striking the Republicans and their national convention down in the heat of globe-toasting climate change.

The gang heads to Roxbury, NY for the Turn of the Century Days (the dot.com bust? nope, the previous century…). Old time baseball, music, food, in a mellow atmosphere.

Later, Monopoly and a campfire under the stars.

posted
  • place: Bedford, New York

apparatus criticus

Every technology that aids in our increased powers also decreases our autonomy as we develop a synergistic relationship with the directed flows of energy that the technology comprises.

Friendship takes on this form of spending time with folks. In their homes, deep time. What would life be if I was a static node and others were dynamically drifting through the world? Motion is relative and stasis is not in the material world, but in the world of flows where stasis is defined by the lack of flows.

Finally got back in touch with Anthony. On the other coast. In respite from tribulation.

And from the historical trivia department: yesterday, fifty years ago Alaskan voters in the first Alaska State Primary Election approved the Statehood Enabling Act 40,452 to 8,010. voters also nominated candidates for Governor, Secretary of State, members of Congress and the first State Legislature. I was born in Anchorage the next day. Eisenhower had already signed the Alaska Statehood Act into law in July 1958, though the Territory did not gain official Statehood until 03 January 1959.

We bequeath to you a state that will be glorious in her achievements, a homeland filled with opportunities for living, a land where you can worship and pray, a country where ambitions will be bright and real, an Alaska that will grow with you as you grow. We trust you; you are our future. We ask you to take tomorrow and dream; we know that you will see visions we do not see. We are certain that in capturing today for you, you can plan and build. Take our constitution and study it, work with it in your classrooms, understand its meaning and the facts within it. Help others to love and appreciate it. You are Alaska’s children. — Resolution passed by the members of the Alaska Constitutional Convention

and from the New York Times regarding the vote:

JUNEAU, Alaska, Wednesday, Aug. 27 (AP)
Voters turned out in record numbers in Alaska yesterday as the vast northern territory settled the question of whether it would be the forty-ninth state. The early balloting was overwhelmingly for statehood. Election officials in the five largest cities of the territory reported that voters had appeared at the polls as never before for the referendum on which Alaska’s admission into the Union depends. The heavy vote was expected to slow the counting of ballots, where all the election tabulations are made by hand. No voting machines are used in Alaska. The polls opened at 8 AM and remain open until 8 PM local time in the four time zones of the vast territory. As officials were getting ready to tabulate returns Fairbanks reported that a magnetic storm had knocked out radio communication throughout much of Alaska. A vote of more than 35,000 was expected. Most observers forecast approval of statehood by more than 2 to 1. In the voting nominations are also being made for two United States Senate seats, for one seat in the House and for state posts.

posted
  • place: Bedford, New York

Orwell

George Orwell Diaries, 70 years after the fact. so it goes. diaries, daily entries posted day-by-day. into the past. parallel to my idea of posting here images from 30 years ago. I haven’t made it very well, as I don’t have details of precisely when individual images were made. twenty years ago I could handle. maybe I’ll try that.

posted
  • place: Hasselt, Belgium

burp


(43:10, stereo audio, 82.9 mb)

Dinner after the first day of the workshop is noisy and filling. No roasted pig or slaughtered cow cut into dripping slabs along with potatoes, but then, what was the choice of dishes? I dunno, this is a retrospective entry, and so, takes on the historical from the view of three-week faded memory. …

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

dinner

head down to have dinner with Udo and some of his neighbors last night, there is a heavy police presence all along Petersburger Strasse, Mercedes van after Mercedes van line the street each with a contingent of traditional green, or the new dark blue, or the black-clad Polizei (colors in order of the increasing necessity to avoid confrontation with, I believe). Straßensperre durch die Polizei. dinner is wonderful in his space, though I feel a little guilty that English is donned on my account. I learn more about May Day in Berlin, though, where there are usually confrontations with little historical relevance, mostly just fun between cops and kids rioting. also learned about a small town where on May day eve, boys in the town would bring birch trees to lean against the windows of the girls that they fancied.

Experiments, that they become always more necessary the more one is advanced in knowledge; for, at the commencement, it is better to make use only of what is spontaneously presented to our senses. — Descartes

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

artsufartsu

Mari has her opening here in Berlin and in Helsinki simultaneously — the Field Gallery here and at Maa-tila in Helsinki. it’s about mysterious mega…

Mega is a loophole in the system of political, cultural, functional, social and historical locations. It is a non-place that questions land-owning and borders—and the whole global economical system related to them. — Mari Keski-Korsu
posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

Art and Teaching Philosophy

ART

Art, at its social core, is the trace of an engaged and immersive pathway. A pathway that conducts the circulation and exchange of creative human energies as they are attenuated and directed by a vast range of mediative (materialized) carriers. The artist is that person who opens and offers the Self in a humane seeking: to engage in a dialogue of energies with an Other. Finding a proper pathway for those energies—transmitting: simultaneously receiving the expressions of the Other—this is the moving act of creativity. Creativity is the charged flow of energies between and through the Self and the Other over relative spaces and times.

These two proto-definitions are the basis of my art and teaching praxis. more “Art and Teaching Philosophy”

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

another TAZ?

tmp.deluxe. call for interest. huh? a large empty space inside a renovated neoclassic building with high ceilings and big windows. controlled on the U1 line by two smiling-but-thuggish youngsters merely flashing their KVB identity cards. as a performance or so. fortuitous to have the right ticket. €2.10 normal tariff. not so cheap. I’m committed to a single round-trip maximum per day. how to do this when a typical day might require getting to four destinations or so. anyway, make it to the tmp.space. they are asking for proposals. slowly the space fills. black clothes, I’m no exception other than wearing faded jeans. there are two of us sitting at a raw chip-board table. call for interest. two large stacks of bluish-white A4 paper, two glass ash trays, one with a few pens cradled in it, one empty. the ubiquitous stench of cigarettes. why is that smell the quintessence of stale? somebody changes the music — electronica for death-metal or so. conversations trip along and don’t seem to get through the aesthetic miasma that is anchored in the stacks of paper and the ashtrays. following the reasoning, following the line. and attempting to insert energy into the situation. having seen and been seen. and a child in a pink t-shirt wanders around. Papa! Papa! making space-testing sounds. to locate herself in the space. doing this, she locates all other receivers in themselves. placing them in the stiff reserve of their aesthetic opinions which they trade in measures, lubricated by wine. locative media while Rome Burns. or is this an exaggeration? more “another TAZ?”

posted
  • place: Düsternbrooke, Kiel, Germany
  • author: Sarah Chung

Sarah Chung

former student Sarah lets me reprint this article she wrote recently about her creative practice:

Sarah H. Chung :: https://www.myspace.com/sarahhdot

I am an experimental multimedia artist, a student, and a teacher based in Denver, Colorado, USA. My latest artistic pursuits are a combination of various mediums including still image, video, sound, sculpture, light, and performance. Most recently I have been collaborating with another female artist, Heidi Higginbottom, to choreograph audio/visual performances using found objects, homemade instruments, contact microphones, and film loops. We make homemade contact microphones out of easily attainable and affordable materials and use them to amplify the sound of the movement of objects. We have used objects ranging from dishware, tile, typewriters, music boxes, sewing machines, thumb pianos, toys, water, or any curious object we can get our hands on. Our intentions are not to make melodic pieces of “music,” but to isolate and arrange pure commonplace sounds that would normally be easily lost in the proceedings of everyday life. While these objects may be ordinary, they refer to a vast web of associations and marked memories. By arranging them, we create a new resonance in the relationships the objects and symbols have with one another. These relationships are meant to be memory cues that can be triggered by sensory experience. We are in the process of experimenting with different technologies and digital software to incorporating projections, audio delay, editing and looping.

As a studio art major I was largely focused on traditional forms of art such as painting, drawing, and photography. It was about six years ago that I began to pay more attention to the intricate and beguiling aspects of the digital art culture. I was introduced to it from digital art courses being taught by visiting professor, John Hopkins, who is a working artist and has taught and traveled internationally. Projects included collecting and arranging self-generated media and media filtered from outside sources. These included field recordings, videos, still images, and lines of text. I had not dealt with this kind of medium prior to this, so I approached it the same as I would painting and 35mm photography. While the navigation of new software in a limited time span was challenging, the results of the projects left me very intrigued and curious about digital culture. I believe that the success of these projects were due to the non-linear process of collecting media without a finished product as motivation. Filtering media (books, internet, video, music, sound clips, etc.) provides an intuitive process for choosing content. It becomes a dialogue that interacts with an individuals sensibilities and social views. Whether I am drawn to content or pure aesthetic, some aspect of the media strikes me, and I collect it.

With human interaction, technology can be used as a tool to express emotion and the individualized perspectives of human experience. Technology brings with it an efficiency that adds new time-lines within our culture. Ubiquitous media screens flash loaded images and sounds that are intended to influence feelings and opinions about products, services, and perspectives in government. These messages compete with each other and have conditioned us to receive information at an exponentially increasing rate. In a society saturated with advertising, I feel a responsibility to express and tap into more emotive, internalized feelings and memories, and to offer a situation for slowing down. This desire is what caused me to seek out the tools and skills that could connect me with the vast and accessible network I was experiencing.

I believe it is of utmost importance for individuals to be informed about technologies so that they may exercise basic democratic principles. I had been intimidated by technology before, but I felt that placing myself outside of the existence of it is like surrendering my own rights. Technology is propelled by human curiosity, but is often used as a system of control. History is constantly redefined based on documentation. Dominant historical theories are based on those with the power to document and expose others to their material. It is crucial to actively participate in the documentation process of our own history in process.

Links: (check them out!!)
https://www.neoscenes.net
https://home.earthlink.net/~erinys/contactmic.html
https://www.pierrebastien.com/
https://members.chello.nl/j.seegers1/
https://www.mutek.org/
https://www.haamu.com/launau
https://www.colleenplays.org/
https://www.skoltzkolgen.com/

posted
  • place: Chino Valley, Arizona

The Wild Surmise

Sue Thomas poses some interesting questions in her search for possible synergies between the cyber and the natural. it’s an open project — add you own answers on her site!

Please describe where you lived and your strongest memories of nature during the years of your growing up. I’m interested in both positive and negative recollections of anything from the smallest plot to the largest wilderness, including animals and plants.

sotto voce: I am a native of Alaska, born there as a Cold War military child. My father, a senior Pentagon analyst, sport-hunted grizzly and polar bears among other magnificent animals. We moved to Boston, then Southern California, then Washington DC, living in suburban or rural fringes of cities. A primal memory was of viewing a total solar eclipse from a beach in Acadia National Park in the northeast state of Maine, USA, at five years old. Watching the sun be consumed, until there was only a shimmering ring of fire surrounding a black hole in the sky. My father was an amateur astronomer, and I accompanied him on a further four total eclipse expeditions. Along with these specific memories, there are general memories of sleeping in the woods, of eating around a fire, of washing in streams, mosquitoes, and dark star-brilliant skies. more “The Wild Surmise”