Decided at 0600 today to write to the FAA Admin & Brad Morse, our Congressman from the district we live in.

When I stopped for HS this morning he said he had decided to attend the Shockley lecture at MIT tonight, so would drive in himself.

Rewrote Bob Davis’ paper on Simulation, making it shorted and more precise. He has a good outline.

Clear, cold

Drove in; HS is going to the Shockley lecture tonight.

Went over to Lexington to Dr. & Mrs. [??] home to the Park Street area mtg. Dr. Ockenga answered questions, the discussion turning to Catholicism and related topics — including a few comments on Determinism by John Ossepchuck.

Went to office in AM.

Dense fog – 25°F

There was ice on the streets this morning, making driving quite hazardous. Went home after lunch and to bed for the rest of the day. I feel quite shaky.

The Toro engine block will be available in about 2 weeks.

Made arrangements to go into the hospital on 25 January; I’ll stop first at Dr. Thomas office to get traction bars put on my teeth.

Overcast

DCH & I shoveled the driveway, getting to church & SS at 10:10, late.

We went to Mary’s for a buffet dinner, Al & Edith had to shovel their drive so they didn’t arrive until 4:30 PM. Aunt Helen was there, and we all had a most pleasant time.

It was snowing hard on the way home, but Rt. 2 was cleared, so we had no trouble.

500 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-mile flying
250 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-mile driving

These are very approximate/average numbers and are affected by the type of plane/vehicle and its relative efficiency.

We are changing the course of nature. Or, more precisely, without life on this planet, nature would be different. We are life in this place. Or we are life, as life is a perturbation of basal flows. An always-inchoate flow, but never completely still. This is all we are, a way for the cosmos to increase entropy, perhaps, as some believe, the best way for the cosmos to increase entropy, to wind down, into a cold and silent nothing.

But it’s all in the language, isn’t it? And even the language needs to get shucked, ripped from its stalk, tossed away to reveal and remind of the truth that the word is not the phenomena that it de-scribes …

Back to:

All Roads Lead To Rome.

as principle.

The questions are, What is Rome, and What is a Road?

et cetera

Nine km. in three days, not bad — it’s actually getting easy — I need to do more sprinting and drills, but just moving faster is best, feeling the greater resistance of the water and consequent speed. That and watching the sky and listening to the birds on the walk from my office to the pool. The sky was exceptionally dark and clear last night, it got down to maybe 40F, pretty cool. Totally dreaming about being in the bush, as they say here, in the back-country, the wilds, the wilderness. To watch the stars sink right to the black edge of the world. Squatting, eyes tearing in the chill condensate of mid-night. The Southern Cross is practically at Zenith now which seems strange, but at a similar latitude as in the north in winter, Polaris also reaches quite close to Zenith. Pity no chance of catching a good sky on this tour. Now too many folks to visit with before possible departure, too many things to do, including whether not to leave again.

Gave JFN my comments in longhand on his program. Left for Princeton at 3 PM after a physical exam at the MIT clinic and 2-1/2 hours wasted while I waited for some repair on the car. Had to stop twice for a new thermostat & hoses, finally arrived in Princeton at 1030 PM after driving most of the way in a hard rainstorm.

Clear – Rain PM

Up at 0610 to get to the office early, but didn’t get there until after 0800. I have an appointment at the MIT Clinic at 1130 for a physical exam.

After the exam, I had to wait until 2:45 for the car to be tuned and the breather filter cleaned. The engine overheated, and I put in both hoses and a new thermo. It still ran hot until more water was put in.

Arrived at CHH’s at 1030 PM after driving in the rain all the way. It was good to see Howard & Winifred.

Checked out at 0900 and drove to the Palomar Observatory, then on up to Redlands and then to Santa Monica.

Went to the observatory on Palomar Mountain, going by Riverside to Santa Monica.

The amplifier/road difference would sound something like this:

I defined the amplifier as a concept which exists at many different scales and in both ‘natural’ and human-dominated systems (though that particular dialectic is a problematic one). It is a system which concentrates (and by default attenuates) energy flows. It is a defined set of pathways for that energy to flow along. (a life-form is an amplifier!)

(As an example, fundamental physical laws, such as the set of principles (gravitational attraction, strong/weak nuclear forces, EM radiation, thermodynamics, etc) that ‘govern’ the process of stellar evolution ‘supply’ the ‘protocols’ for the ‘expression’ of Light energy (radiation) in a highly specific and concentrated form (compared to the availability of that same energy in any random location in the universe).

In essence, humans are ‘merely’ taking advantage of these physical laws to form their own pathways of energy flow. Indeed we can do nothing else, as these laws govern the entire observed and implied universe. So the difference between the amplifier and the protocols that ‘define’ it may only be question of articulation — that is, those physical laws, in human terms, simply exist (for us to discover and articulate over time). The protocols arise as humans initiate articulations of the extant energy flows within which we simply are. So the protocol is, again, merely, a human (socio-linguistic) reduction of observed and extant phenomena. We cannot do anything counter to those phenomena that those laws are ascribed to. However, using these reductive protocols/formula, we set up a wide variety of sub-systems which, cumulatively, are our techno-social systems — complex systems of re-routed energies. As soon as energy is re-routed, you have an amplifier situation because you consequently have a concentration/attenuation of flows. An amplifier is perhaps merely the condition of the existence of a concentration of energies. (this does get into the question of the role of, for example, gravity as a ‘protocol’ which drives the coalescing of energized matter in the universe — or is gravity actually increasing the entropy of that matter?)

Because protocol is a reductive articulation (the map is not the territory) of a ‘real’ phenomena, it is not whole, it is imperfect, and it is not 100% effective. Human systems are a constant struggle against inefficiency and the raw effects of entropy.

Human systems accumulate layer after layer of detailed protocols based on accumulated observant life-experience. However, all these detailed systems of protocol are completely dependent on more basic principles (i.e., as articulated by the laws of thermodynamics).

A road is no exception. In its design and construction it is intended to resist the inevitable entropic processes, while facilitating easier passage of certain ‘types’ of energy. Approaching the road as a protocol-defined pathway, we may look within our own social understandings to circumscribe its actual functions to see how energies are concentrated along that right-of-way. Visualize the differences between crossing the road, driving along the road, or driving ‘off road.’ The end of the road. Middle of the road. One-way street. One’s orientation to the prescribed flow of the road is critical to how life unfolds. (these are obvious, but when looking at the extended concept, protocol, upon which the road is predicated on, these maxims become mapped across all facets of life.) A glancing blow. indirect, roundabout, circuitous, wandering, meandering, serpentine, winding, tortuous, zigzag.

We may observe that the road is an essential element of an amplification system. It is embedded in a wider system of flows, and one might ‘zoom back’ as far as one likes to see this essential embeddedness of the flows — immediate physical, local geographic, nation-state, geologic, cosmological — they are by nature continuous, pervasive, and the essence of reality.

Protocol defines a temporary edge — a fine transition zone — between one energy state and another. When a particular energy state becomes necessary to the continuance of life, a protocol must be applied to the ambient flows in order that they become suitable to that necessary purpose. For example, when a State would change its allegiance from one confederation to another, it will likely have to change some (many!) protocols in order to ‘fit’ into the new league. This might include, in the instance of contemporary war, changing ammunition standards and communications protocol systems — to thus synchronize its energy expressions with that of the confederation. The application of these new protocols will shift the defined limits of energy flow from one case to an other. This shifting of protocollary ‘edges’ and the ‘locus’ of the existing flows requires energy input. Switching protocols repeatedly is a process which depletes and redirects energy flows.

Directed energy flows have inertia. Undirected, ‘random’ flows have a zero-sum inertia (as in a system at equilibrium). Techno-social systems — comprised of a plethora of specifically directed flows — face a considerable challenge to change because of this inertial imperative. The more forceful the expressive output of the TSS, the more difficult it is to change the ‘culture’ of the system. (think – a military junta transforming into a democracy).

dislocated, and wind-blown to another place (in the night). retrospecting from a great distance. not a travelog, but a long narrative story in pieces. a different kind of writing, but not too different: carrying some mapping of the movements imposed by life as it is/was. question: would all the fragments, displayed, end up having a meaning? or would they remain fragmented, and infinitely far from the lived life? can the flow that one feels while passing through this immediate temporal region be truly experienced by an Other, or not.

the San Andreas Fault dominates the feel of this place, though it is only a scarp of low hills cut by displaced drainage washes. I didn’t get to a focal point of the flat valley floor, a complicated outcrop with a sizable pictograph/petroglyph wall up near the entrance to the Monument. it has restricted access, and was closed when I came into the valley. but today, head further south to the southern exit from the valley, where the dirt track parallels the fault scarp a hundred meters to the east. the displaced gullies cannot be immediately decoded by their odd shapes — where the topography is shifting north/south 33-to-37 mm per year. ya’ gotta run to keep up!

Follow the fault scarp east-south-east across the Grapevine and down into the Mojave near Victorville, and end up in a very isolated area of the near Mojave — up at altitude, so it’s very cold and very windy, though that’s nothing new in the High Mojave in December. Simply unload the back of the truck enough to curl up and sleep.

Workshop day begins: first the waka time on the river. Morning cycle down the river to the Putiki boat ramp, get there a little early, and feel the nerves as to what is possible with the workshop. There have been numerous anticipatory conversations in the last days about what I will be doing. I take a small paper with thought-notes and put it in my life-jacket pocket.

I am fighting with the impression that there is a superfluity of input for the participants — some have not been on a river or so. My dilemma becomes a question of when to jump in and alter the flow of events and protocols which accompany the waka and the enveloping and powerful Maori cultural scenario. It makes no sense to do anything other than participate. Where full participation is a position, an approach to an eventuality of contingent life-flow. I am observing the processes and vibes that are coalescing, seeing if there is a auspicious moment to intervene, but I see none. Back to participating. Enjoying it all. The newness, but also the familiarity and comfort which the Maori protocol applies to that (community-facing) unknown, and The River. (more …)

February 18

L.A. notes, again . . . one-thirty now and pill-fear grips the brain, staring down at this half-finished article . . . test pilots, after a week (no, three days) at Edwards AFB in the desert . . . but trying to mix writing and fucking around with old friends don’t work no more, this maddening, time-killing late-work syndrome, never getting down to the real machine action until two or three at night, won’t make it . . . especially half drunk full of pills and grass with deadlines past and people howling in New York . . . the pressure piles up like a hang-fire lightning ball in the brain. Tired and wiggy from no sleep or at least not enough. Living on pills, phone calls unmade, people unseen, pages unwritten, money unmade, pressure piling up all around to make some kind of breakthrough and get moving again. Get the gum off the rails, finish something, croak this awful habit of not ever getting to the end — of anything. — Hunter S. Thompson “Songs of the Doomed”

The narrative elsewhere in this blog lacks the edge that Thompson eventuated in his published works. Compact bursts of driving prose — the energy of which does not rely on the gonzo subject material — but instead brings directly to life the internal processes of be-ing and places them in direct juxtaposition with the madness of what’s out there. This is the trick: and it is precisely this trick, when the two flows are brought together, synthesized, and ultimately exposed to oxygen to be reduced and transformed into a sustenance for the human spirit.

That spirit is then taken to places it needs to be, not where the mutations of socialized comparison point it to, not where material consumability takes it, not to where fear in all its phantasmal coloration deLights to compress the soul into. The soul needs to be able to expand, not contract. And it should have within itself a means to source for this infinite expansion. Should, would, could. For the infinite, there are no means, there is only the denominated will of the spirit — which, in the end, forces a division by zero.

And that’s an illegitimate operation. As is Gonzo generally.

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 …)

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…

What changes flow into the ongoing process of life during solo retreats to power-full places? I think a lot about all the others who I know, and do wish that there were folks who would be able to join me in these places. Some folks I would like to have join me and others, I know, wouldn’t appreciate it. Everything would be different, especially the bushwhacks and the rambles; the cooking and eating, sharing meals, and just hanging out together would recall so many prior times, and the deep and satisfying fun that was had by all.

The hikes: while most attention has to go to the movement itself, as there are considerable risks to walking solo in such places, mind may drift from immediate situation and the larger questions of what has become, what does become of life. It’s more of a noisy mess, but it is easier under these circumstances to do the yogic step away and allow the chitta vritti, the thought-noise, to simply happen, knowing that being in the moment is far more important and has deeper implications than any projections onto future (and very much theoretical) situations or into re-living historical situations. The pull of the un-fettered mind into both those spaces is strong, and the best tonic for that is the risk of solo bushwhacking where there is a steep penalty for not paying attention. I do catch myself every so often, verbally, aloud, slow-down slow-down slow-down, after I make a mis-step or blunder. The most common is when traversing some slick-rock face and stepping on a small pebble. That’s all it takes, send you 10 feet or 100 feet to the next ledge down, or to the canyon floor. Doesn’t make much difference how far, an injury would be immediate life-threatening even if it was a minor sprain — if immobilized, you would have to deal with at least one night out, maybe more, with hypothermia, then dehydration being the most problematic, then the problem of becoming predator food, the problem of attracting help could be very difficult, if in a slot canyon or off the normal known trails. I carry a loud whistle, and do leave small notes in my car which would direct search parties to general areas, but the terrain is vast, and there is much topography that would make searching difficult. I think they would wait a day at least before even checking the car anyway. Unless you told someone specifically that you would be in touch. There is no phone access, and so on, uff. Well, the point is, focus and caution have to be taken very seriously when soloing. I would do things rather differently if with one other or a small group. There is immediately a sizeable extra safety factor. Not that it would suddenly make risk disappear, but an innocuous stumble on the rocks wouldn’t immediately become a life-and-death situation.

What about these time-lapse movies? What are they about? I don’t know what to make of them, but have spent numerous hours making them — 2 minutes per hour is the rate that I’ve been using — a frame every 3 or 4 seconds to make a PAL 24 fps film. I guess I’ll make a dvd or maybe a single work, but have to think of the sound-track for them, that’s difficult.

Anyway, head out, south through Rangely, down the Book Cliffs, through Loma and meet Collin and Marisa at the airport office of their business, the Colorado Flight Center, get pizza and beer, and drive up the hill to Glade Park to have dinner with Bob, their next door neighbor.

try a couple more timelapse shots, but they are unsatisfactory with all the technical drawbacks. Stability, resolution, quality, etc. Nothing to be done about it without a 10K investment, or more.

Instead, after the driving rain all night, start a fire in the morning, still raining, but gradually it tapers off, though it is very cloudy. The guy who came in late yesterday in a Ford Explorer with a Rocket Box on top left at some point in the morning. Gah. No place to go! He’ll end up in a ditch somewhere.

I decide to do the traverse from the Pool Creek road over to Sand Canyon since the lower mouth of the canyon is not accessible because the Yampa River spring run-off level. On the way, I decide to drive up to the Bench fork to see where this guy drove — I am stunned to see that he took the branch up to the Harper’s Corner road, with the 18% grade. No way, after a night of rain, and, as I see when I get out of Pool Creek Canyon, snow down to about 6000 feet, so the last two miles of the road would be absolutely impossible. Just the drive to the fork is bad with the red clay sticking in the treads on the tires making them useless aside from the fact this is a relatively level road, so, no problem. I see his tracks, and even the difference of a few hours (time for the road to dry some), he was having more trouble that I was. I could see the difference of a few hours of drying time. I can only hope that there is no additional rain before Friday when I have to head out, south to Glade Park. I imagine that he is stuck somewhere on the road, though, hopefully not blocking traffic! (Of which there will be none, because after that weather, they for sure closed the top of the road for people coming in.)

The traverse the wide and clear bench to Sand Canyon is subtle but effective. Several kills, and between those and the barrel cactii colonies and the Indian Paint Brush (Castilleja linariifolia) flowers, plenty of that counterpoint coloration that is so outrageous in the West. The silver-green-blue of the sage, then these absolute vortices of color with the flowering plants, stimulating in the soft and wet Light. Found another 14-point rack, gah, these animals are big! Wouldn’t want to encounter a mad one! End up on the canyon rim, just across from where Sebastien, Jeff, Chris, Wendy, and I hike to from the old camping place, years ago, there are some extant shots of folks sprawled on a small bench of sandstone, resting, and eating M&M’s. I recall looking across the canyon at that point, thinking how it looked, how it impressed form into eye. Today, climbing down that formerly observed face was steep and tricky. All the while, wondering about cougars. A series of nice overhang/caves at the top under the limestone cap rock, so, continued the series of cave panoramas, hope to have three decent works to perhaps make into large-scale print works.

The psycho-geographic process in this situation, this environment, this weather, is strictly controlled by the contingencies of the total situation. There is little choice, per se, but rather the application of experience, or lack thereof, to the movement through, across, into, and of the essence of the place. Movement is dictated by will throughout the body, but it also immediately comes up against the contingencies of place. Unlike the Sonoran Desert, the actual number of spiny plants is not near as great, but the small size means easily overlooked, heavy boots are a necessity. And care becomes more about the stability of the foot-fall rather than what the foot might intersect. Some time is spent exploring several small side-canyons where there is plenty to absorb.

Transit of Utah. From west to east, along a winding trajectory from desert to forest to desert, oil drilling, wind power, gas stations, Mormon farms, gold mines, high-security military bases, municipal alarm towers scattered across the landscape — for warning the population surrounding the bases where testing of bio- and chemical-warfare devices is ongoing — warning them of impending disaster. Continuing on the isolated Pony Express Trail, then descending into populated areas. Calling ahead to Dinosaur to see about road conditions. Plenty of snow on the Uintahs, plenty! At the last minute after checking out the Green River campground on the Utah side, I get word that the Echo Park road is open. So, gas up, including the extra tank, and head in from Jensen. Excellent weather, and finally arriving, no one else around, very good. Get the pick of the few camp spaces, #5, 7, and 9 are the best for shade, seclusion, and access to firewood — though shade is not the issue at this time of year, more important would be the access to morning sunshine to warm up — but since there’s no one else around, I can use the #6 picnic table in full sun in the morning for breakfast. So, I take #7 and offload/set-up quickly: already charged at being here once again…

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 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.

Apocalyptic. Huge wind storm, driving wind upwards from the playa to the black clouds collected over the ranges. Wind. Then, much later in the evening, the air becomes heavy on the lungs, and a fine powdered dust hangs in the more still air, like a fog, but dust, powdered mountains, air-borne terrain. It is dark, lightning and thunder shuffles in the background, unseen, muffled behind the curtain of dislocated earth hanging in the air. Eyes sting, nose waters, pressure heavy on the lungs, body recalls the Great Sydney Dust Storm of ’09, sleep is disturbed so the reading of Augustus continues, more on that later.

Many other events and actions go un-commented-upon, so far. And there are more sounds to upload, along with numerous time-lapse sequences. These seem most apropos to the time here. Watching the weather — back to the “window weather’ concept.

Back down to Blue Lake for another definitive workout doing the full length of the lake twice. The far end is shallow and covered with a fine mud with nodules of organic material, almost like crypto-biotic soil, and extending the hand into the mud, it’s warm, though I can’t tell whether that is an affect of the heat-flow driving the upwelling action that has generated the spring, or merely sun-warmed sediment. The water temperature is perfect, right around 82F, with the air temp at 50F, a great combination for working out.

There is a shallow play of fear when getting into the water — snakes? big fish? underwater dangers? Loch Ness monsters? It’s deep and not absolutely clear as it normally is because of the heavy wind and dust. The depth is indicated, though, through the deepness of the blue. In the middle it feels deep: gravitational fluctuations operating on the body. While overhead, the F/A-18′s fight gravity and each other.

Then a short photo trip to do a portrait of Wendover Will and some images of the casino landscaping. Plenty of material there! But somehow I am tired of simply illustrating western society in wasteful and dis-connected abandon. I’ve seen too much of it, and there simply is too much out there!

Today, a group of large Winnebago’s towing large trailers descend around the Enola Gay hangar, spread their leveling legs, expand their living-room sides, deploy external camping chairs, and unfurl their shade awnings. In the large trailers are a range of amateur racing vehicles. Mostly stock cars with over-amped engines. A huge course is set up on the near taxi-way.

Meanwhile, at South Base, a contingent of active Army troops is engaged in a live-fire exercise, complete with fire-finding radar systems and a half-dozen porta-potties, everything obscured in form through the ripple of heat-waves coming from runway one and two and the old taxiways between here and there. In early evening, a contingent of UH-60 Blackhawks come in to land along with a handful MH-6 Little Bird Special Ops ‘choppers.

When a highly-ordered techno-social system meets a disordered system, what are the results? Is it similar to an osmotic membrane with more and less salty water on either side, the fresher water is drawn through the membrane to dilute the salty water? Is the energy-based order diluted and lessened through the contact? A combat situation is, itself, a hybrid sequence of events transitioning between order and disorder at many scales over time– with the different actors intent on maintaining an in-flow of energy in order to maintain their order. It is the ordered expression of collective techno-social energies with the goal of decreasing the order of the opponents system — whether at the single body scale, or at the scale of the wider techno-social infrastructure.

In the case of Afghanistan, the points at which the advanced ordered system (US) can apply weapons to increase the disorder of the opposing system (Taliban) are so limited to be almost point-less. The Afghani society has so minimal an ordered social infrastructure to be destroyed and the relation of individuals to the destruction of their own body-systems (in the case of the martyr), makes the conflict literally sense-less and not win-able in any classic way — where winning is the imposition of a critical level of disorder on the capabilities of the opposition to express concentrated energies that will disrupt the order of ones own system.

A forced migration to the Holy City of Moroni. Tire issues — the damaged rear cycle rim from the red clay mishap in southern Utah and the front-end alignment of the truck. Locate appropriate places to effect the repairs before coming over. A monstrous wind from the south dogs the transit across the flats of the Great Salt Lake Desert on I-80 and whips up a blinding dust storm in the middle and at the eastern fringe at the Kennecott Copper mine’s massive tailings dump.

Salt Lake City is quiet, wide empty streets, pedestrians are frequently toting suitcases-on-wheels. There are bicycle lanes and mid-block pedestrian crosswalks with baskets at either terminus with fluorescent flags for folks to carry when crossing.

Retreat when the work is done and after lousy lunch Reuben at The Bakery. Retreat looks like this:

Arrive at CLUI mid-afternoon, after a slow and cold morning with a walk among the juniper and the outcrops of limestone there in the Goshute Mountains, looking for something, not sure what. The final 100 miles is on an empty road, northbound with the dominant paleo-shoreline of the ancient Lake Bonneville appearing (everywhere) tracing an almost-human-alteration-looking bench line at the elevation of 1,555 m (5,100 ft.) feet above sea level — Wendover is at 1,308 m (4,291 ft.), that is, deeply submerged in a conceptual Lake Bonneville. More on that later. I will have to walk portions of the shoreline at some point. Matt is there at the residency compound so we immediately launch into a conversation that is broad, but specific in its range of subjects. There is the organization of CLUI itself, I am tremendously curious about it as a social entity and how it survives (and thrives) in the relatively hostile (to culture-orgs) environment of the US. Then there is the location here, as Matt takes me on a two hour driving tour of the facility and the town, I am really amazed at the depth and richness of the relationship he (and the organization) has fostered with this place.

We end up at a great Mexican restaurant, The Salt Flats Cafe, at the Blair exit (#4) off I-80. Have to go there again, the chili rellenos were quite good.

This is the result of our trajectory, what we have done to this point, how we have proceeded: or is our trajectory a result of this? The cumulative affect we have as a form of life on this place. With the messy convolutions of relation that accumulate, stratigraphically, on be-ing. No flat-lying sediment with seasonal and measured pulse. Glacial, tectonic, up-heaving fossil be-ing exposed as scarified, reified tissue. How to excise, release, revive once fluid dreams from these frozen remains. Or is it impossible that once laid down from embodied flow, these traces contain only the form of life gone, drained of all strength, all presence, and any forward driving impulse.

Feigning indifference when chunks of life are covered over, awaiting the slow micro- crystallization of silica replacement. Rendering to glass all that came before. Glass to look at, to look through, and to see refracted life; to see the myriad pretty and terrible colors of it all.

Leaving aside the refined mapping of experience-once-removed. And instead, gathering experience first hand, in the moment, where circumspection is wistful, wasteful, or even dangerous.

Music on the road. Traveling minstrels, buskers, harmonica-playing hobos. playing for people on the road, or playing whilst on the road. Meeting at the roadhouse. Beyond the city limits. What goes down when humans engage beyond the control of the proper social order. What goes on outside the ordered flows of town. Interstitial in the sense that between towns lie the open roads. bandits, women and men of loose moral fortitude, and wild animals. The space of chaotic flow.

We suspect that even though travel in the modern world seems to have been taken over by the Commodity — even though the networks of convivial reciprocity seem to have vanished from the map — even though tourism seems to have triumphed — even so — we continue to suspect that other pathways still persist, other tracks, unofficial, not noted on the map, perhaps even “secret” — pathways still linked to the possibility of an economy of the Gift, smugglers’ routes for free spirits, known only to the geomantic guerrillas of the art of travel.

As a matter of fact, we don’t just “suspect” it. We know it. We know there exists an art of travel. — Hakim Bey, Overcoming Tourism

What is the nature of what is feared outside the purview of human controlled flows? Is it merely nature? It is the presence of (or the risk of) death — that singular element that lies completely beyond human control, for ever? It cannot be erased from the wild kernel of being. Some seek the thrill of facing it, some hide in states of paranoid control to keep it as far away as possible, backing away only to fall over a precipice unseen behind. Religion is the construct that irrationally rationalizes the presence of the unknown, of death, and of corrupt social order.

… back to the road …

The body of speed. (hunt and/or be hunted). Movement is the first escape from death. Running to safety, to the nearest tree. Running to fetch the weapon that you left at home. Running for the crowd so that the odds of getting eaten are marginally lowered. Running fast. Running to change places. Running to make a moving target. Running for help! Running to the Library!

The Book as fuel for keeping warm and The Book as weapon: dictionaries and encyclopedias work best for both purposes. Book as pillow. Book as door-stop. Book as object sensed orbiting centers of cultural gravity. Textual asteroids and debris. Escape that field.

The Book as tool for enhancing procreative potential and staving off death. Rather, Books on how to enhance procreative potential and how to stave off death. Reading about how to enhance procreative potential and how to stave off death. Reading-while-driving. Speed. And then it comes. uuuuuhhh.

nah. gotcha, I’m outta here, step on it, hit the gas, burn some rubber, spray some gravel in ‘is face…

viam munire. Stretching my Latin. The Road for Munitions? Or, Road of Fortification or Road of Security. Homeland Security? Interstate Defense Highway System. Autobahn. All roads lead to Rome.

Gazing out the window, not driving, watching the world pass, attenuated, virtual, transitory, and it’s gone.

death strewn on the highway. roadkill. carnivore, herbivore, amphibian, insect: getting to the other side of the road is just part of the inexorable (natural) systemic flow. Roadkill represents one intersection of human-defined flows and naturally-existing flows. The result of this fundamental intersection is near-death or absolute annihilation, a rapid reduction to component complex molecules. from the thathunk of meatier species to the simple fluttering splat of the butterfly. Leathery carcasses that persist for days despite the brutal pounding of truck tires and hard-to-remove stains on the windshield that resist even the most vigorous squeegee scrubbing whilst filling-up the tank.

Insects with a low weight-to-surface-area ratio can sometimes avoid liquidation by the slipstream effect which will carry them up and over the vehicle. But trajectory is all, and the meatier bugs, the swarming locusts and grasshoppers, have too much mass in their sagging torsos to experience this sanctified reprieve and thus become one with their maker in a soul-wrenching milli-second that can be a marvel of colorful abstraction a-la Pollack.

Along one stretch of the UFO Highway in Nevada, red locusts were on the march northward along a specific pathway that they were intent on following without regard to individual survival. At 60 MPH, the dynamic was such that their flight reaction to the approaching truck got them only a couple feet off the ground, not over the height of the hood, so, the lower grill was a mass of dessicated carcasses by the time we got to the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, a hundred miles away. Many more were simply crushed by the wheels, leaving greasy red-greenish stains on the road and in the wheel-wells: their natural trajectory on the ground was clearly discernible where it intersected with roads. I noticed in the gas station parking lot in Ely there was a small flock of birds who were picking over the the resulting detritus on the ground, and when they could manage, actually hanging onto the grills and directly harvesting the carnage, ‘burp!’ What would the evolutionary outcomes be? Birds that can smell idling cars? Locusts who tunnel for 40 feet underground when they encounter traces of heavy hydrocarbons, with luck, getting to the other side.

Larger animals, the mammals are the worst, though, when encountered at any speed. Moose and elk torsos will behave something like the old paper-straw-through-the-raw-potato trick — inertial physics at its most fundamental. The front bumper of the car will take out the long spindly legs whilst the massive quarter-ton of body-meat, at just the right height to clear the hood, will simply stay where it is. But where it is relative to the speeding windshield means that it will simply obliterate anything in the front seats of the vehicle. At low speeds, this can mean a struggling, injured animal in the laps of struggling, injured humans, gah.

Economic efficiency is not correlated to the material efficiency within a limited system. (as example, the Icelandic Hydrogen Economy scam — where the production of the consumed goods necessary for running the infrastructure is remote: off the island and not at all within local system. None of the materials in the infrastructure are available locally on the island, none, except for the human consumers and the human bodies for local construction labor. That simple fact takes economic advantage of cheaper remote industrial labor, ecological damage, etc, and removes those factors from the costing of the local system. Local politico-economic policies are calculated and framed without considering the material re-sourcing.) This approach could be the biggest factor driving the lack of material efficiency of the global system where the feedback mechanisms are more localized and limited and driven by abstracted profit frameworks (which are locally influenced by taxation/government, shareholders, boards, consumers). And very often there is a complete ignorance of the physical reality of the (remote) resource extractives industries which prop up the whole system. If one travels to the location where large-scale (and generally un-sustainable) resource extraction is occurring, it is inevitable that there are social and environmental issues, it’s just a matter of whether they are discoverable under present knowledge-bases, or whether they are recognized by contemporaneous social milieus. Life is a transitory phenomena at all scales. When available energy sources (concentrations of matter) are exhausted, life cannot proceed.

A few minor references to energy and socio-cultural systems.

This view is simple, but outlines the fundamental situation. Research in thermodynamics (Prigogine, etc) has looked at the actual counter-intuitive problem of living systems countering general thermodynamic principles. It may come back to the mystical views of Simone Weil:

Two forces rule the universe, light and gravity. — Simone Weil

With gravity driving the coalescing of matter, the concentration of energy, or fluctuating densities (or simply fluctuation) of the cosmos. The anisotropic distribution of matter in the universe is not an insignificant evolving or existing condition. And Light, well, what may or may not be said about Light?

head down to Denver to meet Jim and Dona for a trip to DAM. I also called Dave to come by as he’s a former employee of the museum where he worked as an installation manager. the art forms a backdrop for stories, reflections, and dialogue. after lunch we head over to the MCA for a walk-thru. I’d never been there and it turns out to be quite a nice space — the rooftop bar and garden has a nice vibe to it. then back to the house to check out some of Jim’s recent Director-based media installation projects. and more…

Trade ye no mere moneyed art — James Johnson

then on to an IMax theater to meet Sally and Montse for the new Star Trek movie which was not very good. ‘nuf said. busy day. sonic documentation to come some future day as with many more past days. never the time to do the processing of files. accumulating faster than processing, a common problem for an archivist. what about being more exclusive? to choke the acquisitions process down to a manageable level. or more aggressively carving out processing time each day? that would come at the expense of sleep, methinks.

next movements. north east from here to there. google tells me that going down to I-17 is slightly shorter than going via 89 north to Flagstaff, deciding the final route at the last minute: the most direct to the Great Sand Dunes. distance versus time. distance usually means better scenery: time is usually Interstate. a slow start, big breakfast, hard workout at the Y, some food shopping, and finally around noon taking off. heavy, heavy wind from the south west. kicks mileage on the truck up to 33 mpg rocketing across the reservation accompanied by wind devils and a haze of atmospheric debris. vehicle travel driven by hydrocarbons. stop to make images that conform to the materializing hydrocarbon system series and the domination of landscape series. make Cortez at sunset. and rocket through the San Juans in the dark, pacing a couple empty semi-trucks (they had to be empty to keep up the speeds and momentum they managed up Wolf Creek Pass). short stop in the dark at the Center of the Universe. that has never happened before in the near-30-years of visits. on the west and south side, for the first time ever, there are the crude marks of adolescent love, hardly to be classified as graffiti. too tired after the 12-hour drive to really contemplate it, head onwards to the Great Sand Dunes. the campground is about half full, crowded, I feel spoiled after a number of the previous visits way off-season I’ve been camping there solo.

down from the heights through Kirkland, at the Bar & Grill, a bevy of roadies parked in the style of… while the desert insinuates, deprecates, and sums.

on the way down to Sycamore Spring again, take the Iron Springs detour through Skull Valley wait for a freight train at the grade crossing there, and find the old cottonwood tree that I photographed in 1985 or so with the 4×5 Graflex during an outing to the area. since then, one huge branch, 4 feet in a diameter, has fallen off, a raven circles above, agitated at the incursion into its place. the dry desert wind moves the natal leaves, later in the season the leaves will make a deep rushing sound in the wind.

following a day en route. Prescott, Phoenix, Denver, Kansas City, Columbia. Arizona, Colorado, Missouri. meet Deb in Denver, then in Kansas City. driving from there eastbound, on that strip of hydrocarbon excreta, Interstate-70. eye-seventy. recalling the towns reeling backwards from that usual west-bound drive from Clarksburg, Maryland to Golden, Colorado, all those years ago. the 32-hour road trips. arrive at the house. Nick doing laundry, the kids in bed. dialogue continues. sleep in. and continue the dialogue that started yesterday with Deb. mirrors of situations reflect, catalyze, frame possible practices, pathways, ways to go.

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compos sui if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it easier to define this ideal that to give practical instructions for bringing it about. — William James, Principles of Psychology

Do the rest of the drive, feeling on edge — that the conditions at Flagstaff are deteriorating by the minute. No leisurely road-trip photos, only images from the road, social mind floating on radio scanning instead of ipodding. Doing I-40 west from Albuquerque as fast as possible, unfortunately, as the Light is always stimulating across this corner of Arizona and New Mexico. There are serious winter road condition issues in Flag, as expected, and it’s always hairy to be rocketing down the road at speed on ice, not pavement. It’s been worse, but when it’s worse, the interstate is then closed. Very marginal. Very stressful. A relief to finally drop down the Mogollon Rim 3000 feet where the snow turns to rain.

The verdict is that the truck handles very well in winter conditions — with some weight in the back and marginally decent tires.

Truck buffeted by winds all night, then the snow starts, this propels dreams into fitful scenarios of drifted doom, a winter spent among the dunes. Unable to proceed, popsicled. Up early, road is wind-cleared, but only locally. Weather threats drone on the radio, and whiting-out proceeds. Pack up and head out. Pass the ranger, give a wave, and don’t even stop at the Center, only a mobile image or two fired off. South and west is where the bad weather is. Wolf Creek Pass is closed. Have to call Richard and Holly to check in from the messy Safeway parking lot in Alamosa, they are completely snow-bound in Durango, and Richard is pretty sick, so, head more south than west. But SR-285 continues to degrade and traffic drops off to nothing. A foot of packed and drifting snow on the road, and more coming every minute. First I was bummed at the pick-up truck in front of me going pretty slow, but after a while, I was happy that there was someone else who was on the road and directly ahead of me to at least get some idea what was happening up there. Plows were not making much progress against the snowfall and for a time I thought that I’d end up in a drift, but it gradually tapered off towards Santa Fe. Hands aching from gripping the wheel.

Shut down driving systems at 1400 a bit north of Albuquerque at the Motel-8 parking lot in Bernalillo, too late to do the run all the way to Prescott today without pushing my throbbing head through several glass, brick, and stone walls. Check in with a couple right jolly Pakistani guys running the front desk. Long hot bath. And lying in somebody else’s bed watching enough cable teevee to get my money’s worth. Free wifi, regroup for the next storm coming through tomorrow morning.

Long day after another long day after another long day. Seeing faces materializing out of time and time and times again This is what the road brings, a movement into memory. Blizzard happening across most of the western mountains and plains. Driven by Pacific storms rolling in and intersecting with Arctic air masses. Colorado is no exception. Waking at Steve and Gaan’s place, a quick peek out the window shows flurrying snow piling up. And cold temps. Around 15 F. We hang for the morning, chatting about other friends, and life pathways. And politics and nations and economies and on.

Their place is perched on a small mesa, surrounded by juniper and piñon. Gaan had photographed a bobcat in the garden recently. The view was unbroken north to Pikes Peak and west to the Wet Mountains. Mmmm. They had to leave on short notice to meet the guys coming through the blizzard from Denver to clean the grease trap at the restaurant, so I packed up the truck and headed out as well, over to Bill’s place. It was snowing heavy, and Rt. 50 Was already bad, but I made it over where I dropped off the black walnut lumber (missing three pieces that were buried in the bed of the truck). It’s the remaining slabs of wood from the tree that I helped Dad topple and send out to a lumber mill in Frederick. Bill’s going to make a coffee table for me from the wood. We hung out for a couple hours — I gave him a couple 16×20 prints and we talked about plans for the coffee table. Around 1430 I figured I had better head out so I would at least have a chance to make it into the San Luis before sunset.

I-25 south to Walsenburg was nasty, and just out of Pueblo, a couple cars went ripping by me, three minutes later, one of them had launched across the deep median ditch and head on into opposing traffic, three other cars were involved. Two of them completely destroyed. All the windows were gone in the one that passed me and no sign of anyone in the car. Six or seven cars had already stopped, and I felt sick to my stomach, why am I throwing myself down this iced-over road at 55 mph? Why? I slowed and started to double-flash the on-coming traffic who could not yet see the accident, hoping to slow them down before they came on the site. I doubt some of them could stop. Another life done gone. Ambulances passed about 15 minutes later. A bit further down towards Walsenburg the road dried out, the flurries stopped and the clouds allowed some weak sunshine through. The sick stomach feeling persisted for awhile. Made phone calls, it’s Sunday, free minutes. Turned off onto Rt. 160 West to La Veta pass and the Valley. Temps, never high, dropping continuously. Made the far side of the pass right before sunset with some electric views. Stopped repeatedly to shoot with my substandard SLR. Through Fort Garland, following the circular roots of Blanca, the Valley clear, dry, and cold. The Crestones showing chill gray ahead approaching the Dunes. Then darkness. Empty campground. A ranger cruises through in his truck and we chat a bit. He promises to check on me around 10 am tomorrow.

The Milky Way slashed across the sky. A few Geminids, Jupiter and Venus setting a couple hours after sunset. Cold. Heat up a pot of chili that Bill gave me last night, mmm. Just the thing to be eating under these conditions. Arrange things in the back so I can make tea with cream in the morning without getting out of the bag. It will be brutal in the morning with a clear night at 9000 feet up and wedged between two sets of 14,000 footers. No sun before late morning at the earliest. Hanging in the cab writing this text. So far behind on the log. So many things gone down, so many people crossed paths with. So many stories told and heard.

up at 0600, toss the last items in the truck, 0640 departure. head north-by-northeast. one of the five or six route options for traveling between Prescott and Boulder. gas relatively cheap. clear, dry roads. modest traffic. migraine ensues. why? still no answers. face frozen by the icy landscape shape-shifting outside glass cocoon. travel-day migraine.

Navajo voices in my head. a roadblock for a funeral cortege winding in to a ragged and desolate cemetery near Naschitti. a couple Navajo guys hit me up for change at the gas station in Farmington. tens of F350 Ford pickups streaming back in towards Farmington from the gas fields that have raped the region in the last six years since the Bush regime opened up the area to uncontrolled drilling.

migraine persists all day from noon. hard will staved off a gut explosion until going up the gunbarrel (Route 17) from Alamosa, in the dark, an 18-wheeler in front of me going way too slow, and another behind me going way too fast. suddenly, with head simulating internal combustion with Pallas Athena to be birthed out the forehead or so, I have to vomit. no place to pull off without wrecking, fortunately I have a camping wash-tub in the passenger seat that I had some munchies for the trip in. I dump out the food, swing it between me and the steering wheel and immediately heave my guts into it whilst cruising down the road at 50 mph. three times, gah dam. finally a turn-off. so eff-ing fortunate to have the tub, otherwise, it would have covered the entire interior of the cab, likely. get the car stopped on a side-road, without spilling the tub, open the door and dump it, get some water to rinse acid from mouth. nothing has spilled or splattered. gah. another 20 miles to the Dunes. where it is closing on zero degrees Fahrenheit. zombie-driving past the Center of the Universe and on into the empty campground, and then death-by-sleeping in the back of the truck at an empty camp ground at Great Sand Dunes. -20 C/ 0 F cold outside, but toasty warm in fleece and down. 680 miles. 12 hours. some stops. and all that land, passed by the eyes that are set stereoscopically in a head that wants to implode into the single dimension of a deep sleep.

YES! WE CAN!

well, being 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 in 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 one of those missed opportunities.

this area 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.

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

my swimming pal, Buddy van Kirk passed away recently — I shared a pool, a lane, with him more times than I can count here in Prescott. either at the “Y” or at the college pool. he was there practically everyday to do a leisurely but long swim. he had knee problems and some heavy arthritis, but always kept moving. you will be missed Bud!

the migrating realities book is about to go to the press in Vilnius after a long haul on editing. I like the design although I’m not thrilled about the font face that the designer chose. more on this when the book comes out in hard copy.

stopped by the county elections office to keep on track as an elections volunteer, and now they want me to be a polling trouble-shooter which is a bit daunting (given the contemporary predilection for very third-world election standards here in the US and the dearth of International observers, not sure I want to get caught up in that). not to mention that the county uses a combination of paper and electronic balloting methods. we’ll see. the ladies in the office were quite nice and joked about locking the doors after I had said I was there to volunteer — apparently they never have enough people to help out. technically it’s not a volunteer position either, as one receives for the 0500 — 2100 day around USD 90 for helping out.

driving around, I pass the migrant worker hang-out, the corner Lincoln and Grove Streets, the site around which numerous letters-to-the-editor have addressed both sides of the illegal immigrant issue. apparently some Minutemen have set up a post across the street, although I didn’t see them today. there were plenty of Latino fellows hanging out under the scraggly trees that lead down the dip in the road off Grove to the flood wash. I can imagine the tanking economy makes marginality even more precarious.

later that month. sugar, caffeine, alcohol, chocolate are driving the frenetic burnout trajectory of the developed world.

oh well. how we interact with the energy flows of our embodiment determines our trajectory.

remember to buy deodorant.

and, at some point in the last days, the travelog counter went over one million (since the first php implementation in April 2004), a quarter million page loads each year. and rising. nothing compared to phat bloggy blogs, but solid and ramping-up traffic. no stable stats predating that, unfortunately.

just back from Helga’s funeral service at the Seltjarnarnes Church and the reception at Hotel Saga after wards. sad to see the ones who grew up with that old way of living pass away, that long-ago generation. Helga was born in a dirt-floored sod hut in Svarfathardalur near Dalvík on Eyjafjördur just shy of one hundred years ago. she was the matriarch to four generations of descendants who follow her on the pathway.

while I will always be an outsider in this close-knit community deep in the North Atlantic, I will always be bound to the place through the people of this family. bound in the living and the dying, the movements, the step-wise step-fool wanderings along the rugged sphere’s surface, floating in a suffused crystal darkness. where replication and desertion become forces driving Light and spare living. messages arrive from all corners of life. direct in the face, through this and that face rarely seen, age-lines and sagging skin characterizing it all. eyes peering out from under graying crop. young ones dancing around, some so young that the dance has not yet begun in the newness of be-ing. but where eyes wide open take it all in to map pathways across pure soul. they take it all in. and the living move on, the ones who have left are there in memory as the ones who formed us.

starting with the UdK-Berlin block seminar tomorrow. 36 hours over two weekends. usually these are challenging and dynamic. good!

back to the brico list discussions:

passing through the cavernous multi-story new station in Antwerp. sound.

When I was just last in New York, I went for a walk, leaving Fifth Avenue and the Business section behind me, into the crowded streets near the Bowery. And while I was there, I had a sudden feeling of relief and confidence. There was Bergson’s élan vital — there was assimilation causing life to exert as much pressure, though embodied here in the shape of men, as it has ever done in the earliest year of evolution: there was the driving force of progress. — Julian Huxley

waiting for Deutsche Telekom is not unlike waiting for Godot. there is a tacit sense of inevitable loss and failure. of lack and dis-communications. or a return just at the singular moment when one has to run to the toilet, to the post, or just to the garden house to fetch a tool or to bring a case of empties onto the terrace. the T-Kom guy is waiting down the block with a pair of binoculars and a high-sensitivity microphone to catch these moments, whereupon he runs to the door, knocks Lightly, and runs back to his truck, driving off in a fury of absence, already composing in mind the scenario to type into his PDA. nobody home, case closed. ISDN? DSL? T-Online? Festnetz? upload? download? surfen? HotSpot Standorten? fahgettit. case closed. wait until next week. or so.

yeah, it’s frustrating, participating in this techno-social system when it doesn’t work. when it does, the frustration in sublimated by the satisfaction of social functioning.

a trip to the T-Com office in Kiel ends up not really helping, the pretty girl behind the counter only knows the scripts that she is taught and how to keep her shirt slightly unbuttoned so that her lacy black bra shows. so, no real problem-solving can be accomplished — on the contrary, she adds another layer of problems by issuing a modem which is incompatible with the data speeds of the service that Christian has ordered. crazy. and the way the corporation makes the usual stupid move of constructing a proprietary face/interface on the network. to cover the complexity with a non-functional layer of bullshit. more than annoying. and the worst is the propaganda of the advertising showing ubiquitously grinning models who clearly are not real people.

what else is new? another book Noise Media Language about (fluxus) (sound) (artist) Yasunao Tone put out by errant bodies — looks real interesting.

long drive transitioning through myriad dry environments and social settings. the two most impressive being the Manzanar Internment Camp and Hoover Dam. and in between those two, Death Valley. no time to do the Las Vegas strip in the process, though it was on the near horizon at one point.

Manzanar lies on the eastern flank of the Sierras in the dry rain-shadow cast by the 13000-foot-plus range. humidity is typically in the single digits most of the year. following Route 395 south from Independence, one parallels this flank, not only dry from the air, but also dried out through the efforts of the City of Los Angeles who, early in the development of that metropolis, bought up much of the land in this area so that the rather abundant water streaming eastward down from those peaks could be tapped off to feed the golf courses and car-washes of the City of Angeles 300 miles to the south and west. with names like Owens Valley, Paradise, Dogtown, Convict Lake, and Rovana, what were older ranching and farming communities were literally drained and dried up. it’s parched now.

along after this war on the land came the WWII contingency of the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans from their lives elsewhere to the Manzanar Internment Camp. there is almost nothing left of the camp today except the dried-out foundations, grid streets, scraggy plants and trees hanging on the outwash plain below Mt. Williamson. there is a visitor’s ‘interpretive’ center, and a three-mile driving tour with small wooden signs saying where different buildings were. it is depressing after stopping to meditate in the remains of the hospital garden to hear pairs of F-18′s screaming and rumbling around directly above, dog-fighting. the war continues.

attenuated transitions, on the same route taken two months previous almost to the day. across the Central Valley, and the ascent of the Sierras. not too crowded for a Saturday around peak season. so much drier than two months ago. most creeks in Yosemite are dry washes. fill the 10 gallon bladder with water from the high-pressure spigot at the east end of the Tioga grade. fill the water bottles and the 2.5 gallon tank as well. and drink a good fill. cold, damn good water. courtesy the Donner Electric Company. there are two spigots, another man is filling a large bladder in the back of his SUV. when I’m done, a pickup pulls up, the guy mouthing “get outta the way!” to me as I get into the cab of my truck. contorting my mouth into a variety of shapes, without using any particular language or vocabulary, I then smile and slowly pull away, waving. on down the road, south on 395 past Mono Lake, being passed by cars moving at excess of 80 mph most of the time. going backwards whilst going forward. one sedan passes. I vaguely notice the occupants. fifteen minutes later a tableau reveals itself. several cars parked on either side of the road, and that same sedan flipped over in the median, a group of people milling around. the D200 records several shots as I pass, transcendent. to Bishop. from Bishop one heads a bit south then east into the White Mountains on a very steep and twisted paved road which ends up in the Deep Springs Valley passing the mythological Deep Springs College. about half-way to the College is the turn-off into the Bristlecone Pine Wilderness area. a 40-mile trek on a bad dirt road. to the locked gate. tooling along, following the principle that wash-board surfaces are best negotiated as such a speed where the tires only have contact with the wave peaks, not the troughs, you get a smooth ride. while filed at the back of mind, another maxim taught/learned during the School of Mines summer field camp — “driving on a dirt road is like driving on ball bearings.” suddenly that mushy feeling with handling. hmmm. slow down. damn. a flat. the fourth this summer. good thing yesterday I had replaced the previous spare which had a 3-inch slash from an unknown source. the current flat tire has a similar gash. changing it as fast as possible, damnation, get covered with the fine pale beige dust. twiLight somewhere shortly off, and another 25 miles to go before getting to the locked-gate/trailhead. I had to think hard whether to continue without a spare or turn around and get back to paved life. with a uncertain heart, I went ahead, trundling along at no more than 5 mph. well, at least it gives a nice view of the passing scenery. consequently, I didn’t get to the gate until well after sunset. there were a couple other cars. there was a hard breeze blowing though with the air around 4% relative humidity, it didn’t feel as cold as it actually was, but it was plunging fast. the daily fluctuation can easily be 40 degrees F (30 C). ground cloth (a heavy black plastic sheet), three back-packing sleeping pads, the wool poncho from Colombia, bivouac sack, down sleeping bag, sheet sack, pillow, down vest, and fleece jacket. after a quick dinner of re-heated pasta from the night before, I crawl in, leaving a small slit to watch the stars through. only just warm enough. over-tired from the drive and the altitude, stunned awake by the stellar intensity, hardly sleep, catching a few scattered Perseids. I’ve not seen stars like this in years. this particular location, aside from the modest amount of air pollution from the rest of California to the west, is as dark as can be found in the lower 48 states. that and being up at high altitude. the stars were not positioned as in a dome of sky. rather, they appeared without perspective, nor were they simply pasted, flat on a black background. they appeared full and with depth and an obvious shading of dark matter obscuring the center of the Milky Way. enough overall Light to see easily. I had the feeling of plunging forward into them, clearly manifest as a space, a cosmos that I was floating into, chill wind flushing any illusions of being on a planet. flying despite the gravity of the chunk of rock pressing against my back.

Break down and have (huh?) to buy Loki a copy of the Harry Potter book (uff, even writing the name here is annoying). Why? Because each summer for the past however many that have been a target for the marketing of Rowling’s tale, some one, me on several occasions, has gotten him the latest installment for an early birthday present for the first of his usual two or three birthday parties. He always has one party in Amurika, sometimes with cousin Lexie, though she’s not here now, used to be that Amma Lillian would make him a nice cake, too. Then, when he gets back to Iceland there is one party for his friends and then another one for the adults in his family. But what is so annoying is the feeding of Rowling’s billion-dollar fortune. At the expense of the local, the personal, gradually but inexorably being stripped from culture. I realized this too late in my child’s upbringing (and my own consciousness) to alter the trajectory to any significant degree. But the idea that parents (elders!) spend time telling stories to the young. Those stories, and that process of telling, spending time (not money!), is a core value itself. The sharing of life-time. Where nowadays, parents are kept too busy to tell stories, and the kids are too jaded to listen anyway if the personal story doesn’t have murder and mayhem with 5.1 Dolby sound effects and less-than two seconds between cuts. One point of realization came gradually when a 90-minute story that I made up and taped while driving alone across the US from New York to Arizona seemed to have made a heavy impact on my child a third a world away in northern Iceland. It is still mentioned long into teenager-hood as something memorable despite the tragic distance of mediation.

I still remember the stories that my mother told me at bed time, sometimes featuring the exploits of my “Teddy” — always full of adventure and to my recollection, completely spontaneous.

But here we are, standardized stories translated into 75 languages, the forcefully marketed imaginations of one English house-wife-cum-writer. Not that I think her stories are bad in that polarized way of thinking about the world (if you’re not with us you’re against us). The content is not the issue. Not that I object to the effect on reading enthusiasm among media-headed tots, that’s not the point either. It’s the hole that they fill in contemporary culture. It is a hole of our own passive making. And we are falling into it, blindly. And it represents yet another fundamental body-blow to idiosyncrasy. Imagine when every bedtime story from Denver to Chaing Mai, Trondheim to Auckland is the same? What then do we have left?

I read at least three of the books cover-to-cover aloud for Loki, readable, adventurous, yup. And I did manage to read aloud the Lord of the Rings trilogy to him as well, just before the movies were deployed. What I just can’t stand anymore is the hyped marketing hysteria that practically every media outlet participates in trying to sell us something or another. One nasty effect is the complete and utter exclusion of the unfortunately shrinking percentage of children who don’t participate in mass culture. To be accepted at all, you HAVE to buy a copy and read it. This is the tyranny of the intellectually impoverished masses as instigated by the greed of the phenomenally wealthy few and compounded by the synchronized choreography of Media sycophants. Try being the parent who doesn’t buy their kid a copy. Unless you really have a hot song and dance, you stand no chance, and even if you do, someone else will buy it for them because it’s necessary. We have been effectively taught that our own freakish or dull ideas should be subject to those of the placid group, that sameness, the same bland rules.

Storytellers are indispensable agents of socialization. They picture the world for the child and thus give both form and limits to his memory and imagination. — David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd

Here’s to telling stories to kids — any stories, risque stories, challenging stories, flamboyant, outrageous, ridiculous, complicated, intelligent stories — they need to hear local voices, local stories. Stories of the like of the News from Lake Wobegon but not from Garrison Keillor or American Public Radio, instead from Aunt Mary or Uncle Al, grandly embellished with innuendo, gossip, faulty memory, and outrageously defective objectivity. Here’s to the propagation of rumor, tall tales, and exaggerated experience. Here’s to speaking with one’s own voice. And connecting that process of inspiration and expiration, deeply, humanely, with the next generation through the stories of the ancestors.

get one of these fantastic super-nice mikroPaliskunta reindeer t-shirts from the collaborative cultural project that Mari is working on. for women in sizes S – L and for men in sizes M – XXL. Colours: black-on-orange, orange-on-black, and orange-on-lime. raakaa ajoa means, liberally translated, raw driving … price only for you 10 euros (non-profit) plus postage. you can reach her at mkk ||at|| katastro ||dot|| fi.