posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

A story

“A story must be judged according to whether it makes sense. And ‘making sense’ must be here understood in its most direct meaning: to make sense is to enliven the senses. A story that makes sense is one that stirs the senses from their slumber, one that opens the eyes and the ears to their real surroundings, tuning the tongue to the actual tastes in the air and sending chills of recognition along the surface of the skin. To make sense is to release the body from the constraints imposed by outworn ways of speaking, and hence to renew and rejuvenate one’s felt awareness of the world. It is to make the senses wake up to where they are.” ― David Abram

The question: what is the lineage of what is now called a story (a fiction, a documentary, a novel, a reportage …)? Where does this symbol-laden, semiotic act come from?

When many tell the same one, or when I tell one to myself, in a dream: these are different instances, very much so, than One telling a story—the story—to many. Numbers.

When the story is a deliberate inhalation and exhalation, the warmth of breath, vital, embodied, incarnate, voice: hypostasis.

Before writing, before the interpolation of symbolic systems, the story was the body: the body, a story.

What is at the core of the desperate need to tell stories in this moment, in this cosmos? What is the psychology of storytelling? Everyone has a story, but the embodied, singular telling is suppressed in the noise of the technosocial now.

And when is enough of this telling? word dialogue Light revolution action. When does telling change to listening, and when do words transform into actions?

I force myself to write something, anything, letters on a screen, filling line-by-line. Though there is little to be said and much to be done. A hollow emptiness that has overtaken days and days. Cosmological movement becomes the singular touchstone that allows demarcated time. The horizon, and zenith, the ecliptic and azimuth. Where is the sun, the moon, Andromeda, Orion, Sirius, and the Milky Way? The temporal where of heavenly transit becomes the story.

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

The Last Man

These are wild dreams. Yet since, now a week ago, on me, as I stood on the height of St. Peter’s, they have ruled my imagination. I have chosen my boat, and laid out my scant stores. I have selected a few books; the principal are Homer and Shakespeare. But the libraries of the world are thrown open to me—and in any port I can renew my stock. I form no expectation of alteration for the better; but the monotonous present is intolerable to me. Neither hope nor joy are my pilots—restless despair and fierce desire of change lead me on. I long to grapple with danger, to be excited by fear, to have some task however slight or voluntary for each days fulfillment. I shall witness all the variety of appearance, that the elements can assume—I shall read fair augury in the rainbow — menace in the cloud—some lesson or record dear to my heart in everything. Thus around the shores of deserted Earth, when the sun is high, and the moon waxes or wanes, angels, the spirits of the dead, and the ever-open eye of the Supreme, will behold the tiny bark, freighted with Verney, The Last Man. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, The Last Man.

posted

Sunday, 20 July 1969

Command Module from Lunar Module in lunar orbit prior to lunar descent, 20 July 1969

Well, I get to make my own 50-years-on entry here: A Sunday evening, late. We were at church in the morning and evening as usual — no shred of memory, what was the texture of that part of the day? Internal anticipation also does not register, except in the present anticipation perhaps mapped over a few remaining neural structures from that prior moment. Currently watching and listening to the marvelous ‘multi-media’ presentation at https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/. What a fantastic use of contemporary media power combined with the enormous documentary effort that went into the original event. NASA really deserves big kudos for their PR sense over the years! (Although it needs to be noted that in the biggest picture, this was the culmination of a military-industrial-academic exercise equaled only to the Manhattan Project, driven in part by the prodigious personal ambition of Werner von Braun.)

Hard to comprehend the difference in technologies, compared to now. I’ve been to the Air & Space Museum in DC many times, and seen the interiors of some of the Apollo vehicles — the big analog flip-switches the most memorable items. It does remain an incredible expression of human presence on the planet despite all the harsh flows that have come from that same presence.

The whole family went next door to the Jones’ house, they had a color teevee, to watch the then-landed Eagle crew step out and onto the moon. I recall taking some black-and-white film shots of the television screen, they are extant somewhere in the archive. Half a century gone by, where are we now?

posted
  • place: Glade Park, Colorado

Day 4 – Hawk Moon Ridge

Storm in early evening fills three barrels, 600 liters in a matter of a few minutes from half the roof. Another 600 liters at least spills over in the ensuing rain. Luna and I take a walk to the north point to watch the streams of water gradually soak the canyon walls, we are soaked as well, but it is not cold, although first touch of rain drop causes an electric pulse in skin. There are a few lightning strikes with the canyon-grumbling thunder, but nothing close. Temperature drops 25 degrees within a short while, breaking the deep heat of the +100F day. Three hours later, another storm rolls through after I had distributed half of the sequestered water to specific trees by the bucket-load, maybe that will give them an edge on possible pine bark beetle damage. Having enough water is a tree’s best way of fending off insect attacks.

posted
  • place: Glade Park, Colorado

Day 3 – Hawk Moon Ridge

Up at 0500 to continue the discipline of yoga on the patio before the bugs make it uncomfortable. It’s perfect in the waxing Light well before dawn. Body is stiff and resisting flexibility, but it will take time after two months on the road. Luna hangs out nearby, and although dog’s expressions have been proven to be largely in the mind of their owners, she has a quizzical look. When I start off with some “Om’s” for some reason she goes charging off barking as though she’s cornered some game. This is even more comic as she usually never barks. Otherwise, I can think of nothing better to be doing in such a place than to allow the body to regain some flowing order with a practice on the patio. 0500 tomorrow again!

I set up a bird bath with rain water barrels (repurposed garbage bins that I set out under the gutter drains mostly just to rinse them of a strong whiff!), and immediately birds begin to come. Have to optimize the inside of the bath with some wood and stones to stand on to give them options on washing and drinking. As I watch this morning from the cluttered kitchen working area that I set up immediately after Collin and Marisa depart, I see a pair of doves moving through the trees, and suddenly a red-tail (hawk) comes jetting through, pursuing one of the doves. I think it was one of the fledglings from this year. Last evening on the regular circuit walk with Luna, I got within 20 meters of a sizable red-tail roosting in a dead tree near the highest point of the ridge. He wasn’t happy with my presence and said so before sailing off down the canyon.

“Red at night, sailors deLight; in the morning, sailors take warning.” We’ll see if this works in a place where the only sailing would be down the river in a raft. Looks like some monsoon moisture is in the air, but only what afternoon brings will determine the verity of this Coriolis-driven sea-borne correlation.

Dinner with Bob and Burdette ‘next door’ — they’ve got some computer problems that I hope I can help them with, so it’s a good excuse to drop in on them.

posted
  • place: Glade Park, Colorado

Day 1 – Hawk Moon Ridge

Heavy storm beginning in late afternoon, continuing with an especially heavy downpour. To clean out the 40-gallon garbage cans and to collect some water for augmenting the supply for the plants most proximal to the house, I move them under the down spouts. they fill in moments. 500 gallons could be collected in no time. water. Prior to the storm, everything feels dry. very dry. This storm certainly lowers the fire risk significantly for at least a short time. It’s ‘monsoon’ season now, so the storms may come every day. Between waves of rain, a flock of birds, some kind of jay, comes: it’s piñon pine nut time so they pass through, busily pecking at the downed pine cones. This morning before dawn when running the perimeter of the canyon with Luna, I disturb hundreds of them roosting along the ridge crest in the trees.

After two months of intense human contact in mostly urban regimes, finally arriving at Hawk Moon Ridge is a treat for the senses. Much work to be done — primarily digesting of all the intense encounters and their potential for future engagement. that, along with a number of texts to continue preparing, editing of several new audio works, correspondance, and retroactively adding to this blog which has gotten rather thin on content since early spring.

posted
  • place: en route Princeton, New Jersey - South Acton, Massachusetts

Saturday, 24 November, 1962

Ret’d. home, stopping at the Emberson’s in Huntington, L.I.

family group, Princeton, New Jersey, November 1962

Clear

Winifred took us over to her library to look at some of the latest maps of the moon. The AMS version was supported by a large table that has columns “Characteristics,” “Ease of Landing,” etc.! This seems to me to be the epitome of extrapolation.

We left for home at 11:45, meeting considerable traffic in-bound to Princeton going to the Princeton-Dartmouth football game. We stopped at the Emberson’s at 43 Saw Mill Road, Huntington, LI, for 1-1/2 hours, and then drove on home arriving at 9:45 PM, after a most pleasant trip.

posted

nula 56232 distant land

Lloyd continues the remarkably moving nula filecast audio and video series with the latest:

56232 distant land

foreboding hung as the struggling train juddered and screed on the distorted rails, first this side of the mountain stream, then that, being forced at intervals to cross on worrisome bridges. a wan gibbous moon shone in the mist, evading the black graspless arms of trees. when they finally reached the city, night had fallen. [9 minutes]

nula is the source of a ser­ies of file­casts, each con­sist­ing of an as­semb­lage of sounds, im­ages, or words, made avail­ab­le for down­load, shar­ing, com­men­tary, and fur­ther man­i­pu­la­tion.

file­casts are gen­er­al­ly, tho not ex­clus­ive­ly, cre­ated from found ma­ter­ial. it would per­haps be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to de­lim­it what this ma­ter­ial may con­sist of, or what trans­for­ma­tions it may un­der­go. the ten­den­cy here will simp­ly be to let the work speak for it­self as much as it can.

the nula pro­ject off­ers more or less de­tailed clues as to the sig­ni­fi­cance, con­text, or in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the works off­ered. it is up to you to put it to­ge­ther and make up your mind. be­sides, we make it up as we go a­long. there is an ini­ti­al grand de­sign, but it has no ir­on fist.

com­mu­ni­ca­tion is wel­come and en­cour­aged. send­ing an email to editor@nula.cc is a good place to start. other chan­nels of in­ter­ac­tion and sup­port are lis­ted in the “func­tions” menu.

posted
  • place: Hawk Moon Ridge, Colorado

post mortem

post mortem, Hawk Moon Ridge, Colorado, August 2012
Look, I was using the ice chest to cache the water dripping from a leak from the cistern to the house pump, I’d take that and water the plants a bit extra, and this chipmunk decided, in the course of a half-hour, to fall/jump in, and … die. He was rigid and hard, floating, when I next went out to dip some more water and saw him. Once in, no way to get out. The only honorable thing to do was to make an image.

posted

gRAYins

Gradus:
*as comb: *
to thinking:

VIBRATION:
AND THE TOOTH:

THE SUN:
THE MOON:

LIEF CIRCUITS:
GAMMON:
PUNCTUATIONS:

SHADES:

the foot:
the spoke:
the person of the star:

coron-axial:
flour:

font:

ripple-nipple:
(the temple on the mound):

*sinus:*
*wavelet:*

rimmir:
atmosphere:
rib: marrow:

sistered:
stemmed:
galactic sauces:

****/~o*

posted
  • place: Hawk Moon Ridge, Glade Park, Colorado

a gift for the yurt

yurt gift, Hawk Moon Ridge, Glade Park, Colorado, May 2012

the yurt is quite the guest house — and Marisa initiated a special guest book by putting a handful of Sharpies out, and getting folks to write messages on the floor which they have done. somehow, though, I couldn’t think of what to write, so I decided to assemble a small piece for people to interact with when visiting/staying in the yurt. I have always noted the various colors of fine sand that are produced by erosion around the West (and elsewhere). beginning when I was maybe 10 years old I accumulated a substantial sand collection from our numerous family trips. samples were kept in small round plastic vials — about two inches in diameter and half an inch thick with a small round label on the bottom indicating the location and the date collected. so in this instance, I carefully looked around Hawk Moon Ridge for sources of different sands which I gathered, rinsed, and put in the vials. the other items were gathered over the last couple years of movement.

posted
  • place: around Hawk Moon Ridge, Glade Park, Colorado

walking the dawg: sacrifice

the yurt from the east side of the canyon, Hawk Moon Ridge, Glade Park, Colorado, May 2012

An afternoon walk with Luna across the canyon to the eastern ridge to look back at the yurt. It’s windy as hell and there is haze in the air, occasional whiffs of fire — dust from Utah and distant forest fire smoke. Not a good sign, but scanning info sources, there is no evidence that there is a fire anywhere close. With wind speeds gusting to 60 mph, though, given the dryness, good Lord, anything Lighting anywhere would likely be explosive.

signs of historic seas, near Hawk Moon Ridge, Glade Park, Colorado, May 2012

posted

Hawk Moon Ridge

Marisa and Collin hit the road for Dallas, Madrid, Barcelona, Avignon, Paris and back. Bon voyage, bon chance, bon vacance!

House/dog-sitting:

Cinnamon for around the legs of the bee hive to keep the ants out; switches for the well/cistern and holding tank; hummingbird food; mail at the PO; videos back to the library; hot tub controls; irrigation systems; seeds to plant in the raised garden boxes; Luna’s routine for walking, eating, playing; yurt ready to go.

Got to figure out a vantage point nearby for the eclipse on Sunday. Should be excellent observation conditions by then after a front blew through last night/this morning.

posted

now the wait

Not that I’m holding my breath, as I am more in the Richard “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” Pryor mode at this point. Docs made it to the Head of School’s desk yesterday, on from there today. Out to examiners via snail-mail (argh, it is 2012, what’s with that?!). Jan really carried the ball in my physical absence from Oz, but the uni needs chastising (righteous prodding) for not mandating electronic submission as is standard elsewhere.

Adding portraits and other snippets: settled on the strategy of adding them to the current stream of postings, then after a week or two, demoting them to their proper chronological position. Daunting how many there are yet to add, along with other content.

Traffic has doubled in the last three months, and I hope this continues, although fresh content addition is still sucking up enormous amounts of time. There is no real limit in terms of what is available from the archive (video is just scratching the surface, and there is the whole analog archive in storage to be digitized! help!)

Heading West shortly for higher and more isolated regimes to wander and look and simply be for a time. to allow thought and thinking to settle, dis-band, and perhaps re-form in a new neuronal configuration. That’s always sure to happen when searching moonless skies for a spiral galaxy or two: Andromeda (M-31) for starters. So, need to sift through back-country gear to make sure with a 2-week hiatus from civilization that I’ll survive intact. The ancient vehicle is the biggest worry, but it should hold out for this adventure (fingers crossed).

posted

We have opted as a society

for a survival economy, instead of creativity……

J.
Thanks for the link.

“Post-capitalist” ??
I prefer to leave [capitalism] to itself:
self-consumption, auto-phagy, autotomy.

We do not need “historical” language to be present,
with memory, with imagination, with sleep;
relation(ship), community
are sufficient.

In too many instances, “story-telling”, “drama”,
“narrative”, and “discourse”
function as obstacles, occlusions—- not passages.
They remain within language.

Roland Barthes has a marvellous intelligence
about language and discourse: he sustains a vivid,
punctual awareness (vigilance) of what language
and discourse cannot do, of terrains (bodies) which
they cannot encounter (visit).

Language does not surround, control, encompass
vivid source, vivid encounter.
Language is exactly a fable.

“The legal profession” is entirely posthumous, mummified,
dead—-a necropolis, necrophagy, coprophagy.

No doubt: they censor Flaubert, Joyce, Faulkner.
Language is a dead (:definite, determined) process:
the “body” of Gregor Samsa, also the body of that “man”
who designs the Apparatus at the Penal Colony.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~

Spermatic (sun).
Menstrual (moon).

Menses (thinking).

It impresses me that emotion draws an instantaneous
relation with

Emotion….one might say…..…..embraces
the body of thinking: thinking begins.

Do the Oglala Sioux have a word for “emotion” as distinct
from “being”—- perhaps not.
The Hopi have no “past” tense.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^
^^

I happened to see Werner Herzog’s <>……
it is decidedly interesting, yet it suffers from “photography”…….
Atmospheric vapor, tactile-aural resonances, scents, tissues of energies
do not come through the mesh.

He notes that within Chauvet cave they felt the potent range of a gaze
which emanated from the walls; at last, it was too much; they could
remain in the cave for just so long: the field of the energy propelled them
to leave.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||

night terrace

skin of water

and these

stones whose faces

draw

contours

of navels

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu uuu

aaaZ

posted
  • place: Preston, Victoria, Australia

click-shift: equinox

antipodal equinox over and done with. looking west out the bedroom window, the sun sets straight on in the clear un-industrialized air. fat moonrise also clear: almost the color of the Icelandic moonrise, but not quite so salmon colored. work starts now. no let-up for three months. no quarter. no muss, no fuss.

posted
  • place: en route Prescott - Yuma, Arizona - Salton Sea - Redlands - The Grapevine - Livermore, California

road-trip

starting up, Prescott, Arizona, February 2011

It’s been years since Gary and I were sitting in a car for a road-trip, but when he called me a few days ago saying he would be in Yuma and had to drive from there to the Bay area for a few days for some meetings, then back to Yuma, I figured, what the hell! We’ll head for Nancy & Steve’s place, and surprise Loki in the process. So, up extremely early for the four hour drive to Yuma. Pretty damn cold and plenty of snow on the road– moonset, icy fog, snow deep in the National Forest, until I drop down 3000 feet to the Sonoran Desert then it’s warmish and dry. Along with scenes of military-industrial development and other realities.

Meet Gary in a part of Yuma that is not on Google, 1000 yards from THE southern border. He had to talk me in — very strange place, hard-core crop-raising every other section line alternating with new or seemingly abandoned California-style suburbs. I drop my car at his friend’s place and we head out in a rent-a-car. West along the border, to the Salton Sea bypass (used to be only a rail access frontage, a bad one! Now it’s fully paved! Bizarre.) Gary and I had last been on this stretch of Interstate almost 35 years previous. I remember it was 125°F so we sat in a MacDonalds for several hours before going to camp near the sea. Between the flies, and the earth re-radiating copious amounts of IR energy all night, it was a bad night, then we drove straight on through to Orlando Florida in somewhere between 48 and 52 hours. But that’s another story.

We have a constant conversation from the moment we cross paths. Last time crossed paths was in Missouri last year, spring with Nick, Karen, and Deb. And before that, it was years. Although we’ve talked by phone every few months. So we talk our way past the Salton Sea, through Palm Springs, Yucaipa (used to live there ages ago), Riverside, Santa Clarita, over the Grapevine and gun barrel north on Interstate 5 to the I-650 Bay turn-off to Livermore. Surprised Loki.

posted
  • place: Circular Quay, Sydney, NSW, Australia

the Quay

The partiality of which; the lack of fullness; the crossed multiplicity of intent; the absence of oxygen; crossing the road (chickens and pedestrians). fully engaged with no formative agnosia. Top of a Sunday afternoon, a flow of tourism around the Quay framed by the regular thrum of Koori didge players and the random fall of jacaranda blossoms. A stiff breeze keeps the municipal commissioned flags nervously fluttering. They advertise “The Rocks – Markets by Moonlight.” A tool in the portfolio of State to promote expansion of markets, consumption. Is it truly such that the State withers without ‘development’ and ‘expansion’ of markets? And what of the grand-scaled discourse — Rousseau, Mills, Veblen, Arendt, and all the others — are these merely reflective of historical knowing, but not of accurate prognostication of individual trajectory?

posted
  • place: Millers Point, NSW, Australia

Empty Infinity

Without beginning, without end,
Without past, without future.
A halo of light surrounds the world of the law.
We forget one another, quiet and pure, altogether powerful and empty.
The emptiness is irradiated by the light of the heart and of heaven.
The water of the sea is smooth and mirrors the moon in its surface.
The clouds disappear in blue space; the mountains shine clear.
Consciousness reverts to contemplation; the moon’s disk rests alone.

Wilhelm, R., 1962. The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, New York, NY: Harvest / HBJ Book.

Researching more of Wilhelm’s powerful translation work that continues to widen an opening door into an ultimately livable space. The dorsal/ventral (toku – nin or Circulation of Light) breathing technique elucidated here — even when practiced with flawed concentration — has an immediate and profound affect on the state of the system. I am even surprised with the intensity of change which ensues. The body is straighter, uplifted, and the balance of body heat has shifted drastically — the chronically over-heated head is cooler, the feet and hands warmer. This shift has not yet directly impacted rising gall (yang) in surprise (reactive) situations, but when the breathing becomes first nature, it appears to have the potential to do that. The base-line of calm has shifted for the better. Will have to consult Heiji about these affects. A daily practice of some minutes, with as many reminders shot through the many unconscious moments of non-breathing, seems to be an auspicious start. There is no going back on this discovered knowledge.

posted
  • place: en route Portland, Oregon - Salt Lake City, Utah - Denver - Boulder, Colorado

turbulent

weather, Denver International Airport, Denver, Colorado, May 2010

Public transport to the airport in the rain. Portland has a close-to-German system running between trams, buses, streetcars, and suchlike. A change of planes in Salt Lake gives a view of the Great Salt Lake Desert and the Wendover stomping grounds on the way in, along with the nasty and turbulent winds. The next hop to Denver goes right over Echo Park. Weather on the Front Range delays us in a holding pattern over Rocky Mountain National Park. Those peaks are all too close! On the ground, full-blown summer afternoon thunderstorm patterns are in play. With the full moon rising over the eastern plains. Look at those clouds!

posted
  • place: near Buena Vista, Colorado

Collegiates

a couple days of essentially hanging out and talking in the open airs of the Collegiate Peaks area not far from Buena Vista and Buffalo Peaks with Rick, Sally, Karen, Montse, Dave, Vera, Gigi, and Lulu. Dave and Gigi start things off on a delicious note with some fresh Dolly Varden trout from nearby and aptly named Trout Creek. Rick brings the motocross gear. and the wind blows. springtime in the central Rockies. the Collegiates are a cold range. St. Elmo got 18 feet – that’s almost 6 meters – of snow last winter. sure it’s Colorado champagne-powder, but it’s a tough range of peaks. so in the lee of the turbulence of the Collegiates now, corn snow, rain, deep and expansive wind, sunshine and cloud. springtime in the Rockies. full moon dis-sleeping under a huge Douglas Fir, gaping at the Aspen stand nearby in the Light of pale whiteness and complete dark. one of those weekends.

posted
  • place: Arrastra Mountain Wilderness, Arizona

last day

sleep dissolves along with the darkness. full moon is covered with high clouds most of the night. but morning brings full sun breaking over the eastern horizon. in the bed of the truck, it finally finds my eyelids. and brings first a reddening haze, then, with squinted opening, shafts of eyelash-broken brilliance. the five percent humidity has scraped the throat and nose raw. water is the first thing: imbibio. reaching up to unlatch the rear gate which slams open with a thud and lets in the sound and sun of morning desert. impact on body by place is subtle and brutally immediate at the same time. already leaving this particular place, only four days. leaving precisely when there is that draw, that pull to go deeper, longer, to simply become there or at least to completely resonate to its frequency. resonate to rattlers, springs, green stone, slickensides, smaller and larger bursts of psychedelic colors every few centimeters, the dead cow, the lone cottonwood, the humming, the air, the water, the Light; thoughts of other places, other people, and other lives bring mostly a deepening melancholy and turbid state to clear thinking. ants. mosquitoes. snakes, thistles. what did I kill by walking, by being there? there are indeed thousands of tiny flowers scattered on the ground everywhere. the cattle have already destroyed the vast majority of the cryptobiotic soil spanning between the other, larger vegetation. they represent the most damaging influence on the desert environment. specifically they cause the widespread compression of the upper surface which cryptobiotic soil cannot recover from in any short-term way. so, every step taken… life destroys to create. only problem now is the plague species, humans, and how the system will deal with them.

posted
  • place: Sycamore Spring, Arrastra Mountain Wilderness, Arizona

the spring again

head out to Sycamore Spring earlier this morning to allow for a longer period to explore. four liters of water rather than two. forgot to take the pruning saw to take out some of the tamarisk trees growing in the wash. will do next time out. how the cattle wear ways through the bush: I followed many of those ways, but they are, in fact, infinite in number and go nowhere but elsewhere. leaving spaces where anything edible is gone. and the microbial soil is crushed and eroding. only splattered shit left behind in various stages of dessication. just as all other forms of life process energy and leave waste behind. eating on the move, because there isn’t enough nutrition in one place to really graze and shit one of those classic UFO-shaped pies, those are the product of pastoral abundance. the desert is not abundant in any way except in lack thereof. it takes at least 100-200 acres of this land per cow per year, possibly double, triple that. why even raise cattle here is the loud question I would ask the ranchers. how long does a cowpie last? here they are hard and indeed could be made good use of in a cow-pie-throwing contest. at the immediate moment of exit from the humid gut, the pies fester with flies, the hairy and loud kind with the technicolor backs and eyes. in a frenzied dance likely for the water content alone. fast dessication hardens a crust which keeps a core amply moist for some days. this attracts some kinds of burrowing creatures who build tunnel complexes that riddle the whole-ness. the pie eventually loses it’s bilious green color and grades into a bleached beige of a rag used to wash a car a few times. they seem to persist in this form — dried and digested grasses, cellulose — for a long time, years to be sure, possibly decades? probably a decent fuel source. how many acres used to gain one pound of meat on these beasts? more “the spring again”

posted
  • place: Arrastra Mountain Wilderness, Arizona

hydrocarbons

Vote Earth Day was spent using only a few grams of hydrocarbons to make hot tea in the morning, and thenceforth, only foot power moving through the desert landscape. watched the stars intently for a couple hours after the thin-sliced crescent moon falls away to the west, the rest of the disk lit with earthshine. watching part with binocs and part with glasses, and part with neither. not much more to say except that zodiacal Light is there as well.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

fixed memories

Memories. how to surface, how to frame, how to recreate. images, in the process of uncovering three decades of work primarily unseen. thousands of images of friends, places, strangers, objects, situations, events. a very small percentage are so far away in mind that what, who they are, is now unknown. so, looking through the external sources, the calendar, the email archive, other images, the travelog. to set a location. but some cannot be deduced. where was I? who are those people? what’s going on?

And then the questions, are the images interesting, compelling, usable?

and to the Wordsworth reference:

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers: Little we see in nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathe’d horn. — William Wordsworth

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

further south

leave Karen and Ron’s place mid-morning after finishing off the networked book proposal, needed to get that uploaded before Monday, and no likely internet connections before that. head south. big accident on I-25 south of C-Spgs. western gusts rock the truck. huge streamers of snow coming off Pikes Peak. get to Steve and Gaan’s place around 1230 and dump some stuff there. we hang for awhile, catching up, and then the three of us head back to Pueblo West to their restaurant (Puukaow Thai) for a Light and very tasty lunch.

then I head over to Ava’s place for Bill and her’s Christmas dinner party where Chris, Rick and Sally, John, Jimmy and Wendy, Emi, Rob, and some others show up in the very exotic Kona Kai apartment complex. the building, a rectangular complex with a large courtyard in the center was built in the 1970’s. the courtyard was covered completely and landscaped with tropical plants which seem to be thriving mightily thirty years later. a complete surprise when entering the doors, especially given the weather about to happen outside.

always nice to catch some face-time with folks not seen so often.

head back to Steve and Gaan’s place where we hang on the deck and get a spectacular display of Geminid fireballs despite the radiation point in Gemini have a fifteen-year-maximum full moon plunked down in the middle of it. hard to imagine the show without the moon, it was intense.

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: Zeesen, Germany

lake swimming

geesh, Junkers JU-52’s flying over the city. two weeks ago it was the Douglas C-47’s, now it’s the Junkers. does this have any geopolitical significance? I was feeling a bit funny the first time I saw one of those planes flying over Germany some years back. so that’s what it was like — to see low-level paratroopers pouring out of those things (not sure how often the Wehrmacht did that, but). or just a slew of those plowing across the country skies, bringing troops to the battle.

just back into town, now I recognize when I hear one of these machines. accustomed, but aware.

headed down (south-east) into Brandenburg to Zeesen to visit with Ulrike at the family dacha (well, actually a large and nicely designed home of her parents — the dacha is in the back yard.) she’s up from Zürich for the weekend. the lake is a few meters away. it is delicious. nothing like skinny-dipping in a summertime lake in the German countryside.

she tells about her uncle who lives next door in his beautiful rammed-earth house. I am fascinated to run across this technology existing here in Germany. and there is Sunny, the happy bulldog. conversation drifts along wide paths through language. Saturn setting in alignment with the first-quarter moon, Mars high, Venus rising only in the early morning. nice to sit in the top-floor deck and watch stars, though the sky does not get completely dark any more as the Solstice approaches.

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

huh?

down to the Märchenbrunnen on a nice sunny afternoon to meditate on the back of me eyelids. still wish I had all the photos that I took in Berlin in 1988 and 1993. the changes are profound. the Germans have managed to make things look good. but what’s behind it? hard to tell, being the outsider. strikes happen, but aside from graffiti and broken bottles on the street, there is little to suggest deeper social problems. for the outsider it can be difficult to read cultural signs. bullet holes are still there, though, and chaos is a scalar creeping into everything that humans bring into the world.

Berlin is clearly a cosmopolitan city, though, with many foreigners seemingly integrated into the foot traffic in most neighborhoods that I move through. but what is most remarkable, just when I think I am entering a blighted neighborhood, there are signs everywhere that everything is being reconstructed. some nice old brick warehouses (formerly the city slaughterhouses are the only buildings in the area that are fenced off and in bad repair. surely there are others, but the construction and renewal seems to ongoing. not sure what this has to do with Byron, but, reminds me of some dreamy be-ing elsewhere, elsewhen…

They slept on the abyss without a surge —
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need
Of air from them — She was the Universe.
— Lord Byron

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

after the full moon

This was a night of the full moon, and the eclipse which takes place here in the early morning, well before sunrise, deeply affects the character of sleep. noting the next total lunar eclipse to be seen in North America is on the winter solstice 2010. I’m there!

And, I still haven’t found a vessel to pour milk from for my tea. I bought a small tea thermos a couple weeks ago in Kreutzberg, one that holds four cups or so. I take this to the desk with a small clear glass to drink from. but as I have to have my tea with milk, I need a small vessel of milk. so far, I’ve tried every option available in the flat. everything spills or dribbles! I may have to buy some small milk decanter. maybe a special antique if it leaps across my path. this reminds me of a previous long-term search a decade or more ago for a decent letter-opener. I had a nice hand-carved wooden one from Ghana, but it split, and I was never able to find another which fit my demands — good design, sharp, safe, efficient, nice material.

I just want to drink my tea while writing in concentrated peace and not leave blobs of drying milk on the desk.

anyway, the writing process. uff. this morning I have yet another stupid realization about my own process (doh!). the writing can be a script, a prescription to action, a narrative about possible action. and my narrow thoughts around a substantive text as a necessity for personal viability in the social system is a phantasm. actions based in the ideas that are danced around in the text can generate that viability as well. actions are often promoters of ‘better’ viability. (what is viability anyway? survival, thriving, materially, spiritually?) I always imagined myself as a person of action, but there is at least some tendency to talk and to words. what is done as action is often in the passive mode (observing, recording). actions that grow from that process are of ambient character — that is, they take the form of atmospheric presences, not active stances, positions, opinions. opinion was not accepted as a child. yes, interesting. so now, the last word is important. teaching allows for last words, although I consciously ask, in a classroom, for someone else to make the last word(s).

sotto voce (to brainstorms): A quick thought popped up as I struggle with some texts, sitting here in my sublet flat in east Berlin. As a person, I like to have the last word. What a lousy habit! In the learning situation, I consciously ask for someone, at the end of a class, to have the last word. I am thinking I will incorporate this more formally — to the degree that I pose the question (either to a volunteer or not) “S_, How about if you make a short (one minute) statement that you consider to be the last words for our session?”

When I’ve been doing this very informally, the reactions are quite interesting, with people vying for a last word a bit (people being anxious to leave and such), and then suddenly a consensus forms and the class ends. I think I’ll have to play with that idea/dynamic. I have the feeling it could be a powerful tool to impress (literally) the learning session into the self.

so, one conclusion is that, yes, the creation of a performance/exhibition situation that illustrates the idea (the script) is just as good as writing a text about it. the only difference is the social scale of audience.

of course, the dialogue, the one-to-one, as I define and act upon it, is a powerful (socially?) transformative process. but the relation of that action to social viability is highly … disconnected? I mean, there is the direct connection between the vital process of creating and sustaining a human community around ones-Self, or of embedding ones-Self in an extended community and ones survival, but this definition of survival seems to be somehow oblique to that of larger scale social viability. am I missing something obvious?

posted
  • place: Echo Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado

night songs

(3:40, stereo audio, 7.0 mb)

a dying fire, late in the moonless night, crickets singing all the while, on the leeward side of the summer solstice.

knowing that the Observer is changing cosmos while watching the stars.

the Enigma of Presence. being here is the initial event that triggers all else.

there in the other national park, not this one, feeding the animals is simply a specific event/action that further distorts the fabric of the local universe, where presence causes wholesale materialization of the local universe itself.

so, leaving the world is the ultimate de-materialization from impressing that outer world. talk about reducing carbon emissions!

posted
  • place: en route Livermore - Pleasanton - San Francisco, California - Sydney, Australia

global transit

A couple days in Livermore. Lumpy sleeping on piles of dis-used or dis-placed bio-rhythms. But two days in the pool for abbreviated workouts. That’s a relief. Though the real results of all the hard rehabilitation work of the previous 15 months has dribbled away in the hectic urban travel of the last two months. The only redeeming physical process has been walking around, taking the stairs rather than the elevator.

This day starts two days ago with an afternoon drop-off at the Bart Station in Dublin, exposed to the intensity of 10 lanes of rush-hour traffic on each side of the station. uff!

(00:04:01, stereo audio, 8.2 mb)

About to land, the plane delayed its take-off in order not to arrive before 0600, the aviation curfew time where landing would initiate a fine of USD 250k! Don’t wanna wake up those sleeping Aussies. The Pacific slipped by, unnoticed under a waning moon. Have wondered at those who chose to sail it in times past. To be on it, at the center of a reduced world, as though on a ship in space, with stars filling the vaulting dome to the rim.

posted
  • place: Kiel, Germany

lunar dreams

a nice network crossing late with Fernanda, in Berlin now, formerly from ISNM. in crisis mode, figuring out some steps to take next in life. she had written me a couple days back, after returning from a five-week holiday in Brazil visiting family, back to a deadening job in Berlin, in the angst of being alive, but having that vitality being drained by pointless and un-inspiring work. half the battle is not to fall asleep to the liveliness that surges up from life. not to allow the pressures of social production to compress dreams unless it is to press carbon into diamond. to make dreams fly with Lightness and certain brilliance. no matter what, though, is to not let life be weakened so much that each moment is lost to the dull and stultifying grind of labor. finding a labor that brings joy is a rare pleasure, but finding a life labor that brings some social recognition as well as that priceless joy is ever more unusual. surrounded and obscured in a matrix of dark matter, searching for a life that does not lack Light, what do we become?

so, we talk about these things, not quite strangers, but desiring to know the Other’s life and the path it takes, has taken, to bring us here. and then, there is the future.

Lunar Moon day 5
Year of the Red Overtone Moon

kin 141: Red Spectral Dragon
I Dissolve in order to Nurture
Releasing Being
I seal the Input of Birth
With the Spectral tone of Liberation
I am guided by my own power doubled
— from the Lunar Calendar site

the usual Light night’s sleep before travel. because of early rising and tight schedules. fog persists into the morning, the remains of the clouds that obscured the lunar eclipse last night.

posted
  • place: Hobe Chobe, California

Mauve Desert

Adriene’s CD, Mauve Desert, based on the novel of the same title by Nicole Brossard, circulates around the space that is this place: the desert. I’ve never found it circumscribable with my own texts, or in images that I’ve been able to spin out from the hours and days spent wandering in these liminal locations. images, with still attributes seemed to have some potential to gather the loose photons but hardly re-present the fullness. nor do they touch on the possibilities that allow the heart to be monitored by internal ear. finding indescribable a surmounting way of this time of life. where a complex mélange of life problems flow through each day. job, location, art production.

The desert is indescribable. reality rushes into it, rapid Light. The gaze melts. Yet this morning. Very young, I was already crying over humanity. With every new year I could see it dissolving in hope and in violence. Very young. I would take my mother’s Meteor and drive into the desert. There I spent entire days, nights, dawns. Driving fast and the slowly, spinning out the Light in its mauve and small lines which like veins mapped a great tree of life in my eyes. — Nicole Brossard

Adriene’s compound, Hobe Chobe, on the outskirts of Twenty-Nine Palms, is a funky array of block houses, sheds, a 1950’s vintage travel trailer, a Buddhist bee hive, and assorted spaces shaded by some nice eucalyptus trees. dusty, I’m wishing for the fat shop-vac in Prescott to tidy things up from the infernal entropic advances of the desert system on this modest infrastructure. Adriene calls it humble, but Brad and I find it quite inviting, and in the end, after we figure everything out, comfortable. the weather is perfect for the situation — a bit warm for the season, high 80’s during the day, low 50’s at night. as the full moon wanes, the stars begin to appear.

posted
  • place: Twenty-Nine Palms, California

Hobe Chobe

Arrive at Adriene’s Hobe Chobe compound after a long morning and day of roaming through the lower Mojave. Old Woman Mountains, Turtle Mountains, Marble Mountains. End up here at the compound in Twenty-Nine Palms, seven miles south of the primary Marine desert training base.

Siddartha.

Elevated fiery thoughts, no mindless sheep in the great herd. Moving across vast landscapes, finding smallness in the world, finding dimensionless spaces in the blasted washes of empty moonLit darkness. Connecting theory and practice.

No one teaches the path that should be taken. It is only taken or not.

Full moons flush the stars from the sky, leaving only the strong and the man-raised devices in the sky. Temporary mindlessness.

posted
  • place: near Amboy, California

bed in the Marble Mountains

bed, Marble Mountains, near Amboy, California, November 2006

back up a familiar wash in the Marble Mountains, close to another Wilderness-designated area. arriving at dusk after an intermittent drive across the Sonoran desert from Prescott. conversations range over media, culture, education, social systems, software, teaching, art, and, uh, what else? weather, geology.

full-moon hiking up the wash into a zone of chaotic conglomerates, alluvium, diorites, granites, limestones.

posted
  • place: Echo Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado

defining instruments

long hike onto the bench above the campground and above Mitten Park. lizards, snakes, birds, jack rabbits, mule deer, limestone, sandstone, chert, black widows, other spiders, textures, sounds, steep climbs, looking over several precipices. there is nothing here. there is only. there is only energy. mind reflects back surface noise and shapes, so far. noise of social engagement. clearing will take time. and will ultimately bring back more power to the spirit. hoping that no job offers arrive during this period of being offline. doubtful that anything will. given the record of life to this point.

darkness falls drifting slowly upwards from the ground. under the huge cottonwood Light is lost. in the branches of the piñon. blond dead grass radiates sunshine recalled from noon. sandstone walls the heat. moon begins to Light canyon walls after twiLight. high-pitched bat chirps ping fast when bug is echo-located, otherwise, slower twips as they sail around the heard space, defining its dimensions. all this mostly unseen to eye.

posted
  • place: en route - Kelso, California - Prescott, Arizona

howl

On a near-moonless night, 0300 brings a surround-sound chorus of coyotes howling, laughing, and cackling. At first I was a bit worried, but reminded the Self that no living human had ever been attacked by coyotes. Sleeping on the ground is always a challenge of mind. To believe there will be no scorpions, snakes, spiders, or other varmits looking to snuggle right up in the sleeping bag. Did hear some scritchy sounds coming from the car at another juncture of Milky-Way-spinning darkness, but saw no destructive evidence of rodents in the morning. A recorder would have been nice with the coyotes, but I was happier with a small hunting knife and flashLight instead.

posted
  • place: en route Livermore - Kelso, California

next year

post wild-fire, Tesla Road, Diablo Range, California, August ©2006 hopkins/neoscenes.
post wild-fire, Tesla Road, Diablo Range, California, August ©2006 hopkins/neoscenes.

Hit the road, heading gradually south and east. Through the burned hills of the Diablo Range between Livermore and the Great Valley. Avoiding the main roads when possible, but spending most of the day at speeds too high, with death only a wrist-flick away. Here again in the Mojave. Fullness of stars. Moon will be up later. Tonight on the ground. Head exhausted after first the NYC trip and then the ISEA gig. Haven’t processed it all. And the short time need for employment. Prescott is a lousy base anyway for that.

Head exhausted with the whole last year. Need to clear it out and start a new life. Suggestions about going to OZ surface again, after the virtual contact and the contact with various kiwis and ‘strains in the last couple weeks. hmmm. That or Canada. Okay, heading for bed. Letting granite grit cradle my brain for a half-solar-cycle.

Great visit with the Pulsar Road crew. Left five of Kevin’s paintings on loan. Took the rest with.

The day before Loki turns 14. The separation is painful, especially with no clear plan for the next months except for heading to Colorado and to Missouri. Putting job applications in. Following up on the UC-Davis opening, and on. Spend the next week finalizing everything in storage. Keeping out what’s necessary. Trundling the rest off not to be seen for an indeterminate length of time.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Rexroth

Mr. Sobol, while mentioning his wonderful gigblog, finds resonance in my travelog and the work of Kenneth Rexroth, and sends one of Rexroth’s works along.

Inversely, As The Square Of Their Distances Apart

It is impossible to see anything
In this dark; but I know this is me, Rexroth,
Plunging through the night on a chilling planet.
It is warm and busy in this vegetable
Darkness where invisible deer feed quietly.
The sky is warm and heavy, even the trees
Over my head cannot be distinguished,
But I know they are knobcone pines, that their cones
Endure unopened on the branches, at last
To grow embedded in the wood, waiting for fire
To open them and reseed the burned forest.
And I am waiting, alone, in the mountains,
In the forest, in the darkness, and the world
Falls swiftly on its measured ellipse.
* * *
It is warm tonight and very still.
more “Rexroth”

posted
  • place: en route Prescott, Arizona - Soap Creek, West Elk Wilderness, Colorado

on the road

Embarking on the traditional trek across Tribal Lands, Four Corners, to Gunnison to meet Chris and Scharmin at their cabin. Solo in the car, though, on this transit, without Loki it is sad, instead with Sage, the mild-mannered and warm Aussie.

The raw earth, impinging on sky, fills many gaps in motion-saturated being to a fullness not reached under any other circumstance. More about that later.

Make it across the reservation, across the heated spaces, rapidly. 60-70 mph. But stopping more frequently to check on Sage — to see how she is handling the heat in the back of the truck in a crate. She seems unfazed, and completely carried away by the smells at each stop. So much so that she can hardly go potty. Too many good odors to follow up on. The landscape is, as always, stretched taut between earth and heaven. Light traffic, few tourists. Shiprock shows up on the southern horizon on the stretch of road past Four Corners. And I try to make the connection between that apparition and the video I shot of it five years ago from the same vantage. All is apparition. All is unrevealed by Light shimmering from the sky. Seeing people only far off through a reversed telescope. And now that all gas stations are direct credit-pay, there need be no interaction between Self and Other. Not even exchanging money. It’s a change in the social fabric, a deep change. Another alien-nation manifestation. Flagstaff, Navajo Reservation, Ute Mountain Reservation, Cortez, the Dolores River, Lizard Head Pass, Telluride, Montrose, the Black Canyon, Curecanti, West Elk, and finally here to Soap Creek. The main decision upon arrival, whether or not to sleep on the ground. The choice bounded by limited knowledge of the local wildlife, but south 30 miles into the Uncompaghre Wilderness there are definitely large carnivores, must be here as well as Soap Creek is a trailhead dead-end into a wilderness area. The thought of being wrapped in bivvy sack, sleeping bag, liner, and clothes, zipped up, and becoming a meal. Uff. But the desire to be prone, between earth and stars, with ponderosa silhouetted, black on black is of opposite attraction. No moon. No moon.

posted
  • place: en route - Prescott, Arizona -- Granite Mountains, Mojave Desert, California

incursions

shoving into the month. already moving again. house emptied more-or-less. now out in the Mojave. near Kelso. on the usual overnight stop between Prescott and San Francisco — in the Granite Mountains southeast of Kelso Dunes — perfect temperature, negligible humidity. so, star gazing bare-chested. Sirius, Arcturus, Vega, Antares near the waxing moon. Jupiter ahead. took the back way to I-40 at Seligman — essentially continuing out Williamson Valley Road for 65 miles. deep through isolated ranching territory on the fringe of the Prescott National Forest and something of a soft terrain of limestone, basalt, some red-rock, and green vegetation cover from the recent two weeks of monsoon. even caught a small storm that cleaned the windshield. making virtuality more transparent.

the Mojave as it always is. despite encroaching red-yellow air at sunset from eLAy and other less tangible impacts from humans, bats are winging about, some animals and birds out there — jack rabbits, nothing else seen, but likely there — and the plants, rocks, contributing to the raw being of place. and the ever-consequent silence laying heavy behind any sound. even starting up the computer for a bit of writing is a noisy industrial incursion. and with battery running down very fast. so that words either have to form now or simply dissipate into the real ether! setting the alarm early to have a slow breakfast, tea, before the sun breaks the boulder ridge immediately to the east. want to get on the road in this black car so that at least all the hours of the heavy mid-day sun are not spent inside it. coffin.

back to look at stars as battery dies.

posted
  • place: Chino Valley, Arizona

road tripping

keeping an email flood at bay. what for.

just got Christian on a plane to Detroit and on to Paris and Hamburg to Steffi. after a few short days of jumping around the local landscape. Sycamore Canyon, Toozigoot, Baghdad, 7up, and Perkinsville, among other places. places. and the sun, sky, moon, a few stars not drowned-out by the fullness of the moon, coyotes howling in the early morning. sleeping on the ground is cold even with the bivvy sack, but the back holds up to that test. Bella-boop accompanies us for some of the touring. dirt roads are tough on the truck. dusty. but the driving is something to get into. more of this kind of travel soon. after cutting losses and moving on from AZ to other places. loosed-feet. and free fancy.