Western Convenience #124, 2525 South Broadway
10.350 gallons
$3.729/gallon
$38.60

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.

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
9.745 gallons
$3.929/gallon
$14.71

Last day in Arvada and, well, the ensuing 12 days at Echo Park is still completely unprocessed (both visually, literally, and, perhaps, figuratively, and/or even psycho-spiritually). Whatever the case, it’s over and gone already. But heading to Glade Park above the Colorado National Monument to house-sit for a couple weeks, so should be able to pull some more quality content in then. After that, though, back on the road again, jumping around Colorado, and thence to Arizona (again). Then the job search begins in earnest. Academia, private sector, non-profit, NGO, or perhaps even public sector. Whatever fits the plan — which is an open one!

Universal Gas Mart, 9205 West 58th Avenue
11.142 gallons
$3.869/gallon
$43.11

Victoria (Co-ordinator of the Hackademia Festival) invites some of us bricoleurs to jump into an IRC discussion on technoshamanism connected to the technomagias festival in Maua in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. That was a nice language riffing challenge talking about the basics of reality (and juggling with google translate made it even more interesting!). I get more and more feeling that the Brazilians are doing very interesting things, and have been doing them since way before Freire started his radical practices in social encounter and bringing back energy from instead of going straight into the ‘State’ to being sourced in community. All the Brazilians I have had the pleasure to work with, teach, or otherwise cross paths with are fantastic thinkers, doers, and lovers of life!

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!).

looking at the blog, looking at life, comparing the two. also understanding how Facebook has almost completely sucked the life out of other online interactions. trying to decide whether or not to go back to the Twitter account, though I loathe to do so in some way, using it to drive traffic here. although the site here is still increasing traffic overall, on a continuous basis. with Twitter and FB promotion that might increase. but the whole concept is annoying even without the consideration of the privacy issues inherent in the platforms. it is a point of pride that I’ve got my own domain, running on a Linux box, (sure, with a big commercial hosting service), managing my own tech support, and posting my own content 95% of the time rather than trolling around to re-post other’s. yet always the question of relevancy arises, after the effort of the dissertation, in the unclear zone of awaiting outcomes. and the fact that this platform is a part of the PhD overall. that places a strange pressure of continuance on it. after the 18 years of online presence, irrelevance is still an issue.

fleeting passages, mental imaginations slipping through a narrow slot canyon, rubbing gritty walls and feeling the cool stone on cheek, fleeting passages, mental imaginations of non-being. going beyond what is pressing into eyeballs from out there. some kind of inverse folding of the in here to the out there, becoming all from being Self. or watching the Other vanish from meat-space tangibility, entangled-ness, there-ness, then gone. with a rough sigh. expelling all that is lively, and no longer receiving the inspiration that was once dealt: there’s a finite supply. clocks winding down, complications, intrusions to safe, normal living. looking around, first at patterns of mud flow after a flash flood, then at shapes of crenelate cyanobacteria in cryptobiotic colonies, then at the faces of friends, aging. and finally at the archive full of photographs.

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
9.176 gallons
$3.789/gallon
$34.77

Western Convenience #124, 2525 South Broadway
4.891 gallons
$4.089/gallon
$20.00

Loaf N Jug, 783 West Highway 64
3.811 gallons
$3.839/gallon
$14.63

wanted to check if a round-about way to get to the top of the bench was possible via heading to Mitten Park, and ascending the end of the bench there. nope, not without some serious bouldering or even technical climbing. got up pretty far, but the as the rocks are severely distressed at the fault itself, everything gets unstable. I quit where the trees stopped growing! good day for just looking around at everything along with a little initial off-road cardio. the cryptobiotic soil is always something to visually decode along with the lichen and other symbiotic expressions.

a short circuit to recall the textures and to reacquaint the senses with the essences of place — sky, rock, earth, plants, former occupants, etc: the basics. starting with a quick overview of Echo Park from the southern wall (a of the first two images), following that complexly eroding wall along to Pool Creek, then across to some nice petroglyphs.

Gateway Service, 124 West Brontosaurus Avenue
8.439 gallons
$4.159/gallon
$35.10

Shell, 101 Railroad Avenue
6.644 gallons
$4.199/gallon
$27.90

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
6.989 gallons
$3.999/gallon
$27.95

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

‘nuf said.

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

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
6.533 gallons
$3.899/gallon
$25.47

By pure happenstance, (I was on the CSM alumni page for something), I saw the announcement for a three-day conference on Art in Science and Technology (ArtiST) connected with the High Grade literary magazine at Mines. As I was involved in the ancient High Grade (back in 1977-1982), I thought it would be fun to jump in on this event. It was funny to be introduced as an alumni who had worked on the High Grade 30 years ago (!) (actually 35 years ago!): Ancien Régime.

It was an experience! The reading by Jake Adam York was stimulating (albeit somewhat dark).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Hmmm.

Any off-the-cuff calculations on how much capital investment is represented in this junk yard?

Coming soon to the Digital Drive-In terminal nearest you will be the traffic reports direct from America courtesy of the artist John Hopkins who will be rolling west on The Big Road during the month of August. There is always something happening out there on the road and The Big Road will bring it web-direct to you. From road kill to hamburger prices. And you thought Route 66 was just a song — it’s where you GO!

This project brought to you courtesy of Tapio Mäkelä and Terhi Penttilä curators of the MUU Artist Associations Tenth Anniversary Digital Drive-In project. and is dedicated to those with whom I have rolled across the face of this place on four wheels with hydrocarbon fires burning — 01 August 1998, somewhere in Amurika

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
6.610 gallons
$3.569/gallon
$24.26

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
5.774 gallons
$3.569/gallon
$20.65

Reading a series of transcripts of talks given more than 100 years ago by the Zen Buddhist Abbott Soyen Shaku:

So that in the Buddhist system, the very motivational essence of Life on the planet that ensures its projection into the future is the source of suffering.

Shell, 12401 West 64th Avenue
5.383 gallons
$3.059/gallon
$16.47

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
10.732 gallons
$3.019/gallon
$32.40

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
10.683 gallons
$2.969/gallon
$31.72

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye come into an house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. — Matthew 10:8-14

1st Stop #6015, 11185 Ralston Road
10.635 gallons
$3.119/gallon
$33.17

1st Stop #6015, 11185 Ralston Road
7.309 gallons
$3.219/gallon
$23.53

Shell, 12401 West 64th Avenue
8.564 gallons
$3.349/gallon
$28.68

Golden Sinclair, 601 12th Street
10.167 gallons
$3.479/gallon
$35.37

King Soopers #645, 12350 West 64th Avenue
9.545 gallons
$3.299/gallon
$31.49

Shell, 12401 West 64th Avenue
10.299 gallons
$3.439/gallon
$35.42

Framing (of) the Flow: re-distribution and the occupation of Wall Street.

A closer look at protocol and flow: the guiding of energies that is applied by protocol, how protocol affects flow, and, finally, how flow affects the distribution of energy and power in a system.

Re-distribution arrives: a media blurb in the face of the ruling class, framing their stupid public squabbles that now merely parrot vacuous resonances of “Let them eat cake.”

Any techno-social system (TSS) is fundamentally comprised of a set of pathways along which ‘naturally’ occurring energy (re)sources are directed ostensibly for the overall good of that system. (note: not necessarily for the good of each individual participant in that system!) The imposition of these directed pathways suggests that the resulting distribution of the energies flowing from those sources is not uniform: there are concentrations of energy (power!) and consequently there are regions of energy (order!) deficit. (note: the flows are not merely defined by spatial and temporal frames of reference!) These inequities are present from the moment that ‘naturally’ occurring flows are re-directed in service of the techno-social system. It is largely because of the specific nature of the imposed protocols which (re)direct the flows that the distributions of energy are consequently imbalanced. (At the same time it is important to remember that energy/power is not distributed evenly at any scale!)
(more …)

In speaking about the US military, I’ve often used the simplified example that it has only six weeks of strategic petroleum reserves (of sweet and sour crude) that it can reliably deploy in the short-term. When that oil runs out the military machine largely grinds to a halt. I decided I needed to fill out the nuances of the situation by tapping into some CSIS briefings on Operational Energy Strategy looking at optimization, reduction of consumption, and implementation of systems that make the logistical problems of fuel access and dependence mission-neutral. There is a government site documenting some of the issues. And there is the DOD Energy Blog. These sources provide a number of in-depth explorations which illustrate the vulnerability of the overall techno-social system to energy deprivation and the current rising crisis which dominoes behind greater world energy demand.
(more …)

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. — R.M. Rilke

1st Stop #6015, 11185 Ralston Road
9.908 gallons
$3.499/gallon
$34.67

Conoco, 3201 Wadsworth Blvd.
8.719 gallons
$3.459/gallon
$30.16

The World is a Sacred Vessel …
As for those who would take the whole world
To tinker as they see fit,
I observe that they never succeed:
For the world is a sacred vessel
Not made to be altered by man.
The tinker will spoil it;
Usurpers will lose it.

For indeed there are things
That must move ahead,
While others must lag;
And some that feel hot,
While others feel cold;
And some that are strong,
While others are weak;
And vigorous ones,
While others worn out.

So the Wise Man discards
Extreme inclinations
To make sweeping judgments,
Or to a life of excess.
– Lao Tzo, Tao te Ching, Chapter 26

Shell, 7970 Wadsworth Blvd.
8.415 gallons
$3.449/gallon
$29.02

What am I supposed to do in a group of militants who expect me to leave in the cloakroom, I won’t say a few ideas — for my ideas would have led me to join the group — but the dreams and desires which never leave me, the wish to live authentically and without restraint? What’s the use of exchanging one isolation, one monotony, one lie for another? When the illusion of real change has been exposed, a mere change of illusion becomes intolerable. But present conditions are precisely these: the economy cannot stop making us consume more and more, and to consume without respite is to change illusions at an accelerating pace which gradually dissolves the illusion of change. We find ourselves alone, unchanged, frozen in the empty space behind the waterfall of gadgets, family cars and paperbacks.

People without imagination are beginning to tire of the importance attached to comfort, to culture, to leisure, to all that destroys imagination. This means that people are not really tired of comfort, culture and leisure but of the use to which they are put, which is precisely what stops us enjoying them. — Raoul Vaneigem (The Revolution of Everyday Life)

the day after the ascent of a 14,000+ footer (Grays Peak, near Silverplume), no sore-ness. remarkable, considering the intensity of the cardio work that such an effort entails. heart-throb rising from chest to throat to head as altitude is gained.

heading back into deep work on the thesis after a string of field research expeditions and dislocations. the gathering of material is continuous, as is the (plodding) process of getting archive material up (see new (old) stuff)

then, back to work.

So human social organizations constantly reconstitute themselves through a flow of members and other adjunct materials, information, and energy. Many of these are selectively favored through a continuing expansion or effort to expand above their original size. Such organizations may reach a point at which further expansion is blocked, and budding off is the only alternative to continue. The blockage may be due to internal structural problems, such as a Marxian internal contradiction, or the appearance of revolutions, and so on; or, to external constraints–such as furious neighboring states, or a strongly competitive market enterprise. — Richard Adams

I would suggest that the enumerated items — members, materials, information, and energy — may be re-categorized into energy, and the embodied and surrounding protocols (flow pathways accumulated through shared (social) information). Materials should be ignored in the sense that they are ultimately manifestations of energy: traditionalists are be encouraged to consider that the concept of ‘things’ and of static ‘materials’ are merely convenient constructs to be transcended or shed in the stead of energy and flow…

Let us transfix this momentary eternity which encloses everything, past and future, but without losing in the immobility of language any of its gigantic erotic whirling. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Ta… impossible, when writing, to accede, to yield tradition to this, eh?

badly developed negative fourteen years before the demise of these monuments.

on a day spent at altitude (zenith at 14,278 feet (4352 m.) up Grays Peak); with hypersonic overflights of military aircraft, some close enough to distinguish under-wing weapon arrays. are they joy-flying on regular deployments, or is this some memorial act?

a couple hours online between bouts of wild(er)ness solo and with old friends. have a long conversation with a solo hiker up in Mill Creek this morning. Steve lives out of his modest Toyota RV, a retired engineer, spends 5 months a year hiking in the Colorado high country.