deLightful dinner with the Dewey gals, nice to meet Kaolin after 18 years or so, and to meet Emery after the same. an after-dinner twiLight walk is shockingly intersected by a coiled rattler or so. my foot was only a meter away and ready to swing that direction. not a good place to plant the Self. the twiLight was dense enough that there was some doubt as to the reality of rattler-ness, no rattles were sounded and we didn’t press our luck. ‘nuf said.

off to Grand Junction to drop by the Laurita compound, make some collective images. then a slow drive back to Cedaredge to hang out with Bean until late in the evening.

cycle down to meet the Walker crew down at the pool for an all-day swim meet. Alex and Sonya are both in several events. lament that Loki never got to experience such activities.

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.

whups have to get a photo up for this, to be sure. I head south from Manitou to spend a day with Bill in Pueblo, after meeting for breakfast, we pick up the coffee table that he made for me from the wood that came from my childhood home in Clarksburg, Maryland. there was a sizable Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) tree next to an old barn. the tree wasn’t healthy and so my father wanted to remove it — a process that I helped with, digging down in some places more than six feet to the roots and cutting them until he was able to pull the entire tree down with the Willys Jeep and a block-and-tackle. after sectioning the main trunk with a chain saw, he had a guy come and take the sections to a lumber mill where it was cut into rough planks which were stacked for drying and eventually were transported to Arizona where they sat for all of 25 years. since Bill was doing some pretty high-end furniture-making, I got the idea of having him make a modest-sized and simple coffee table which he did do from the remaining wood, leaving only toothpicks leftover, as he said. it’s a beautiful table.

so, next on the day’s agenda was a road trip into the Wet Mountains west of Pueblo. living up to their name, we were in fog and rain much of the way up to Isabel Lake and the cloud cover really never broke the entire day. dinner at Puukaow Thai and meeting with Gan and Tassanee. then back north to Greg’s for a couple days of work.

whoa. 50% of the DA-40 Board. this crew in one place at the same time. look out. late night for some, not for others. thanks gents for a stimulating evening!

Prof. Fred Henderson III of Mount Princeton Geothermal, LLC, meets us in the late morning (thank goodness!) for a briefing on the geothermal development that he is overseeing in the area. the ultimate goal is a heat-exchange/re-injection power plant based on several high-flow wells into the hot spot that drives the hot springs. he then takes us on a two-hour tour of the area mapping out the geological regime and sharing some of the development info for the geothermal prospect. the major problem in the valley (of Chalk Creek) is the complexity of property ownership and the density of residential development. this entire area is carved up in relatively small lots with homes and is a very desirable location, so people will fight any drilling, piping, whatever is necessary for the plant, this, knowing it is an alternative energy source which will offset some of the coal-fired electricity production that the West is so dependent on. the coal plant that supplies them with electricity is out of sight, though, and there are sure to be a minority who will resist anything remotely industrial in appearance while the mountains fade into the growing coal haze.

the last stop is at a recently completed well that officially has the highest recorded heat gradient in the state of Colorado. I do a portrait of Frank and his wife there, it’s on her property.

(noting that the Chalk Cliffs for which the canyon is named are not actually chalk but rather hydrothermally altered Precambrian granite which in places will crumble in the hand, while those unaltered are hard as … rock!)

after the tour, a last slow soak with those rust-e folks still left, then reluctantly descending from the mountains, in conversation.

up to the hot springs with the rust-e crew on a business/pleasure trip to nail down details on the sustainable creative practices conference/festival next February. we have a substantial cabin to hangout in and passes to the Hot Springs pools. the resort hasn’t changed too much since the last time I was there twenty years ago or so. the weather conforms to the springtime-in-the-Rockies norm: changeable. with a tendency to unusually wet and cloudy which no one complains about. too much water is rarely even a nuisance in the West. the 14′ers, Mt. Princeton, and Mt. Shavano are mostly invisible, but when the peaks appear, there is plenty of fresh snow above tree-line. no motivation to do any serious climbing between the tight schedule of meetings and mandatory soaks in the hot water.

first we have an orientation meeting with the resort management who are really enthusiastic about the conference plans. to be sure, February probably isn’t the busiest month up there. there are a few ski areas within 50 miles, but weather conditions can be severe at any time, and the hot springs aren’t right on a major highway.

the afternoon is spent up in St. Elmo being introduced to the Ghost Town Guest House bed-and-breakfast with one of the owners, Sharon. along with her husband, they have just recently finished a fantastic place right in the town, and are currently the only year-round residents.

the evening starts with a long soak followed by a sumptuous dinner that leaves everyone ready to crash after suitable aprés aprés. Chalk Creek can hardly be called a creek this weekend, with all the snow-melt and fresh precipitation, it is raging and fills the moist night air with a power that erases all other sounds.

the day’s activities are interspersed with memories of trips to Tincup, over the pass from St. Elmo, and jeeping with Collin, Joe, Mike, Chris, Cindy, and the usual eclectic posse that would converge at Joe’s family cabin there. ages ago. another life.

Golden High School graduation at Brooks Field on the School of Mines campus on what starts off as a dreary and chilly morning with uncharacteristic clouds sticking to the foothills. Holly is the Valedictorian. the weather clears up by the end when Montse and I head back to the house for final party preparations. I take the opportunity to get the whole Williamson Clan together for a group portrait.

fourteen hours later, celebrations finally end with a round of toasts for the graduate.

Dear Holly. What a pleasure to be here to celebrate this time with you! The teacher who spoke at graduation is precisely right that whenever two humans cross pathways they are both changed in ways that are not (always) immediately apparent. This is a powerful principle of life: when we realize and take to heart that this occurs, we may intensify the outcomes of these encounters through open, honest, and unfettered engagement. This engagement should be attentive, concentrated, and focused. Through this, any other human encountered becomes a collaborative partner in a dynamic creative process that is the essence of life. As is taught, the next person you encounter may be the Buddha, and thus, how you engage governs the potential for enLightenment. I wish you all the best in your near and far future; that the pathways you walk will be full of those transformative encounters; and that the transformations bring the breath-taking inspiration that makes life joyous. Life is a phenomena! You are phenomenal! At any point you have questions, answers, observations, or discoveries to share, I am happy to give you my attention. Thank you for being you! oxoxox jh

day starts in a noisy campground, packing up, rolling out, the ritual stop at the Center of the Universe where there are further changes — someone has brought in a larger iron tank for the artesian well and an even larger one sits next to it. they have changed the flow of water such that the artesian flow is saturating the ground, making a significant area that is salinating the surface soil. the weeds are cut close to the ground. the two large wooden posts that I used to sight through the windows are lying on the ground. change. I expect that someday soon the Center will be destroyed. what then? as with all documentation, that which is documented passes away. on to the Sand Dunes Swimming Pool (aka, the Hooper Pool) to get cleaned up before returning to civilization. it’s way too hot to do any laps, that and along with a couple school buses full of elementary school kids. end up having a long conversation with an elderly Latina woman baby-sitting her grand kids, a local to The Valley. I catch a group photo of a group of students from La Jara Elementary School.

on down to the low-lands, Golden. the big event, the main reason I schedule the trip for this time-period, Holly’s high school graduation (and Party!) approaches. I arrive at the house late in the afternoon to find Natalie and Cassie making brownies for the party. they promptly head off to a sleep-over, leaving me to watch the oven. Holly gets home, and then Sally, and Rick. Montse comes by as well. much work to be done prepping food. another trip to Costco accentuates the challenge. then the task of making two large salads. it’s a team effort late into the night, and I’ve never quartered or halved so many cherry tomatoes before.

I join Joanne on a half-day excursion to Verde Springs at the headwaters of the Verde River. she is an old acquaintance from the mid-80′s when she and Mike led biology and geology field trips at the local community college — I was on a memorable week-long one to Death Valley in the winter of 1985. the hike today is part of local Earth Day activities, although she has been leading these monthly for the last year as part of the public awareness campaign that the Center for Biological Diversity is mounting in opposition to the plans for massive groundwater mining by the towns of Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley. a representative of the Nature Conservancy was along as well to introduce the land that they recently bought protecting one of the most sensitive areas of the riparian headwaters. there was an eclectic group of folks from a thirteen-year-old to several couples who’ve retired to Prescott.

we started out at the 100-year-old Sullivan Lake impoundment in the middle of Paulden which is fully sedimented and the dam itself is crumbling. it sits at the head of a 20-meter deep canyon cut into a late Cenozoic basalt flow that forms the immediate subsurface for much of the immediate area. Joanne gave a brief overview of the issues that are threatening the Verde headwaters. the primary one being the construction of a huge pipeline by the Prescott city government that will tap into the Big Chino Aquifer, spur rampant development, and have a major impact on the springs that feed the Upper Verde.

we then proceeded to the parking at the Little Thumb Butte Bed and Breakfast where we hiked down to the river at the confluence of Granite Creek and the Verde (not until I did a before group portrait). upstream of the confluence the Verde is blocked by the influx of sediment from Granite Creek and forms a turbid still water lake that is cut into the canyon sediments — clearly the Sullivan Lake dam silting up has deprived the river of its normal sedimentation load and caused heavy down-cutting of the pre-existing flood-plain (which now lies about 8 meters above the current water table). this has largely destroyed the riparian environment above the confluence. I would suggest the first thing to do is to begin to cut the dam down, slowly, so that there can be a incremental release of the 100 years of backed up sediment to bring back the former water-table level and reclaim the upstream riparian environment. this solution is likely impossible given that the upstream watershed feeding Sullivan Lake has significant human development of the huge watershed area which covers Paulden, Chino Valley, and much of Prescott as well as the entire Big Chino Basin.

there are many significant Hohokam archeological sites in the area, structures and petroglyphs alike: the ancient ones were here in force. and disappeared as they did elsewhere in the region. suddenly, in the mid-1300s. unfortunately these are minor sites compared to other more spectacular places, so often petroglyphs are chipped and defaced, and certainly the areas have been thoroughly cleaned of movable artifacts. it is illegal to disturb any findings, but the laws are almost never enforced.

we wander upstream to a wide but now down-cut and parched floodplain with large and elaborate (and inscrutable) petroglyphs chipped into the desert varnish that is present on basalt boulders fallen from the cliffs. then we head back below the confluence where the canyon transforms into a rich riparian environment with the river simply appearing in the midst of the gravels first as a stagnant trickle. as we go on further downstream it grows rapidly with the influx of numerous springs coming in from the north side of the canyon through some fractured limestone (and ultimately from the Big Chino Aquifer. I spot a long gopher snake lounging on a branch in the riverbed. the fish increase in size as we move down stream. evidences of beaver activities are everywhere. we lunch at the Nature Conservancy segment, wade in the creek a bit, head downstream another fifteen minutes and then wander back to the cars in the hot afternoon sun.

Joanne has taken many tens of people on this hike and rightly assumes that once people have experienced the richness of the riparian environment they are more likely to be able to imagine the consequence of its potential loss. as everywhere in the West, and increasingly, in the world, water becomes an object of contention — to some an economic commodity, to others merely another extractable resource, and to the entire ecosystem that depends on every drop, an indispensable ingredient of life.

access to the area is somewhat restricted (much of it privately owned), but the headwaters area that is managed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department as the Upper Verde River Wildlife Area is open to the public. highly recommended!

I learned about Ava’s middle name this morning, Miao Shan Ying which comes from the legendary goddess Guan Yin (Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit). Miao Shan was the goddess’s name in her previous incarnation as the daughter of a cruel king. it means wonderful goodness. good call! here is the princess making pancakes on Saturday morning.

turns out the HyVee (not the Schnucks) grocery store has Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream on sale for just $2.73 for 1.5 quart, uh-oh. that and sadly, Henry the rockin’ horse is ill, but Ava poses for a picture anyway.

well, 22 years later… from the kitchen series. for six months, I only photographed in the kitchen of 1417 Mapleton Street in Boulder. E.J., Peter, and Stefan, here, and another 15 or so, unscanned. 4×5 negatives, the 16×20 prints are quite nice…

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

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

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

anyway, a selection of responses, so it goes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

day starts with French toast, frisbee a bit later, things that Loki and I share over the history of sporadic presence. cut my hair off last night, making a pile in the middle of the living room floor. clean it up. clean up the kitchen, and other details. so it goes.

make a museum tour as well to the National Museum to see the new Steina Vasulka installation which is monumental and fits the space perfectly. then on to the Kjarval and the Hafnarhusid as I discovered as of February this year they are free to the public. the Martha Schwartz I Hate nature / ‘Aluminati’ installation in the courtyard of the Kjarval is a nice critic of the horrid environmental degradation happening at the hands of Alcoa and corrupt government officials who are selling the landscape to make aluminum smelters and the dams which are necessary to power them.

also wander down to the harbor to take some photos. observing with irony that the whale-watching ships are docked immediately across the pier from the whaling ships — a fact which no doubt escapes most tourists as the signage is not easily interpretable. anyone from Greenpeace would know. (heh, Simmi tells the joke, my favorite meal is whale meat with green peas…)

managed to get over to Seltjarnarnes to visit with Edda, Stefan’s mum, who now has a flat in the same place that Jón and Helga lived some years back.

not much interesting to write about here. haven’t gotten many of the sound files that I have picked up over the couple weeks online yet. as usual, behind the flowing times. months, years behind on all this — picking up, accreting material observations, when to start the reverse process to dis-engage with this acquisition obsession? rhetorical questions. to scatter into a text of frequent error and mis-apprehension.

over for a visit with Sara. and her sister, Cecilia drops by — she was Loki’s art and design teacher last year.

big news here are the armed marines guarding the HMS Exeter docked in the main harbor, here for a conference on the Arctic Convoys (from WWII). police do not carry weapons on a regular basis in Iceland and the country basks in a peaceful idyll interrupted only by the influx of immigrants which are routinely tabbed with a variety of crimes.

days spin into the weeks. and time begins to come to an end here already. so, trying to get in touch with folks, Palli, Sara, Magnus, and others. too short. and pathways too long. and there is no time to catch everyone. made it to a big opening at Kling og Bang with some former students and saw a whole slew more from the period of time I taught at the Art Academy between 1990-96. very nice to talk to some of them after this long gap. many are still active.

three years since that crippling accident. still walking, still talking, but still realizing that at any moment it could all stop. happy every morning that I can get up and make some tea whilst listening to construction noises in the neighborhood.

drop by for a visit with Val to catch up on her work updating the database of the National Gallery of Iceland. meet for a bit with old friend Posi who is now the director of the museum and Rakel who I worked with way back in 1994 on the first stirrings of network activity in the form of a web presence for the organization. brings back memories. and thoughts.

Nan’s funeral in Charlottenburg. I see a number of people that I have not seen in some time. Kathy Rae is there from Manchester, and Sandro, one of the students who came to Iceland all those years ago.

the funeral is moving, standing room only. in the room with the casket, a video tape interview with Nan running silently, along with a projection of one of her Light-water videos. flowers, candles. friends in black. stories from a few folks.

after the service, Sandro mentions that he has a photograph from the Iceland trip, which he then pulls from an envelope. I am moved when I see that it is one of my postcards that I sent him after the trip. I think I sent each of the students that I had addresses for a copy, if I remember right. I immediately notice that it is on resin-coated paper, ach, but that was a time when I could use nothing else as I had only the college lab which could hardly be called a lab even. I worked with what I had. he said he would send me a high-rez scan of it. it underlines that old idea I had to gather up all the postcards that I have ever sent and put on an exhibition. what fun that would be. especially if each of the people would attend the show.

it is very nice to let memories of Nan float up, especially her work which is essentially about Light. and her presence as a mentor, teacher, friend, her art. generosity. the community she supported.

and memories of her Armani suit and her fondness for good cognac.

Avalon from Roxy Music plays in one interlude. and I make this small tribute — blackbird sings…

catching up with the kids to see how they grow. and plenty of chances to participate in the raptor hunting/feeding events despite the icy snow and such weather that I’m not so used to.

prepping to leap? or to merely stand still, justly, or, perhaps, verily. I do say unto you. all these texts and images. 2007 will be the peak year for the neoscenes travelog. it can’t become a more time-consumptive project, or, god-help-me, it’ll end up nah’ good for da body in this in-car-nation. counting the hours? counting the ROI (return-on-investment)? the social benefits that arise from this work? practically infinite for the first question, practically zero for the last two. and with significant chunks of life-time going in to this, and nothing coming out from it. why-oh-why do I persist? bulldog jaw spasms onto the carotid.

The act of seeing (active) gradually changing in the act of looking (passive) is exactly what modern global capitalism is doing with human mankind. By replacing the means to create a life (rurality, agriculture, self-protecting, autocratic societies) with the means to earn a life (industries, labour, rent, mortgage, salary, funeral insurance), the emphasis slowly drifts from the active sense to the passive sense. This is exemplified by the way the internet developed from a research instrument to an entertainment device. In this process which lasted a surprisingly short time of about ten years, the presence of the web turned from a small interesting peer-to-peer group to a huge beast of millenarian proportions. The monster as the natural companion of a gigantic destroyer. The spider’s web is eyeing the world , the eye lost its vision and is multiplied inwardly on a enormous scale , blinded by its own image like the drowning men filming their own drowning in a drowning world. — A. Andreas (cited from nettime)

feeling pretty lousy with this hanging-on cold, but a chilly and wet trip by bus in to reboot is rewarded with some very nice crossings-of-paths — Keiko (talking share tokyo plans), Elsa (talking Lisboa and roguewaves plans), Anton, Dan; from share.montreal, Jim (is a polar/solar bear, surprise, surprise, yes, indeed, very nice to discover this!) and Marie-Hélène; as was Katherine (another polar bear! great!). head home somewhat early with Dan and Emily to their place in Brooklyn for the night, then back to Jersey the next afternoon.

Emily’s got a nice collection of conscious education books from her studies at Columbia’s Teacher’s College, I take some time to dig into a few of them for some good jolts. she fills me in on her work developing kids’ social networking platforms for the non-profit takingitglobal.org.

see at a distance an undesirable person;
see close at hand a desirable person;
come closer to the undesirable person;
move away from the desirable person;
coming closer and moving apart,
how interesting life is.
– Gensho Ogura

up at 0430, out the door at 0440, on the s-bahn by 0458, at the airport at 0550, on the plane at 0645, into Köln-Bonn at 0800, through Köln-Deutz at 0845, arrive at the Academy by 0900.

breakfast with Zil and a quick tour of the Academy — haven’t been here for years since visiting Nils Roeller back in 1997 to see what the progress was on the Flusser archive among other things.

Zil and I share ideas on teaching, art, creative active, facilitation, corporate be-ing, the desert, and so on. a very nice meeting with the unknown Other. as Miga and Hubertus are developing a collaborative project with Zil, I do hope to jump in with some seminars on collaborative creativity. we’ll see.

jump to Stuttgart the day before yesterday on the train to visit a few days with Jeff, Elizabeth and their only remaining stay-at-home son, Ian, a high-school student — sort-of cousins from pre-historic Boston and Park Street Church days. Jeff is Aunt Edie’s sister’s son.

Elizabeth puts together a sumptuous Turkey Day dinner, and Ian’s best friend from Vienna, Oskar flies in for the feast.

breakfast pönnukökur with Egill and Alva

qWe define aura as a unique phenomenon at a distance, however close it might be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon, or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you breathe in the aura of those mountains, of that branch. — Walter Benjamin

Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart with Mari and Mika

Trümmer sind an sich Zukunft. Weil alles, was ist, vergeht. Es gibt dieses wunderbare Kapitel bei Jesaja, in dem es heißt: Über euren Städten wird Gras wachsen. Dieser Spruch hat mich immer fasziniert, schon als Kind. Diese Poesie, die Tatsache, dass man beides zugleich sieht. Jesaja sieht die Stadt und die anderen Schichten darüber, das Gras und wieder eine Stadt, das Gras und wieder eine Stadt.

Rubble is the future. Because everything that is, passes. There is a wonderful chapter in Isaiah that says: grass will grow over your cities. This sentence has always fascinated me, even as a child. This poetry the fact that you see both things at the same time. Isaiah sees the city and the different layers over it, the grass, and then another city, the grass and then another city again. — Anselm Kiefer

I head on down to hear Andre Vida jam on saxophone at Wendel with Jodi. it’s smoky, cool, hot, beat, and groovin — check this redux audio out…

this is how the day started, he was awake and hanging out, then migrated into my arms, and suddenly he was snoring upside down. so, he ends up on the floor in the living room, snoozing until Papa klingles the door bell after a long search for breakfast Brüchen on this Unification Day holiday. so, a Unification baby — good planning! the afternoon is filled with visitors, babies, cakes, champagne, gifts, and song.

despite having a nasty sinus infection, well, manage to make it with Bill to one of Simon’s football matches in Brewster. the game is called for 30 minutes with an encroaching thunderstorm, but when that bypasses the area, the game continues. I hack, cough, spit, dribble, and sniff all the while.

overnight at Eric and Sylvia’s (aka Asteria) place

in Brooklyn after that nice share.dj evening at reboot in the City.

meet Trebor for lunch and coffee in Park Slope. hanging in a coffee house, cyber cafe. where hardly anyone is talking. this is the social venue of the time. wouldn’t have been this way five years, ten, twenty years ago. with Bob Marley playing non-stop on the sound system. and photographic portraits of old gypsy women on the walls. the guy across from me, in the cluster of couches full of typers gets up and leaves, leaving an ipod or iphone behind. a gal next to him in an overstuffed smoking chair gets up and runs after him. no one else looks up at the ripple fluttering of off energy. I smile at her when she returns to her seat and her computer. no more contact.

and the urban vibrato in the space from ankle to nose. along with hard pavement. I walked two miles from Eric’s down to Trebor’s. it always surprises me, the condition of the general infrastructure of the city. would it be better if there wasn’t a war going on?

CocoBear, Nancy, Loki, Naners. Loki is not standing on a platform. he’s six-feet-two plus. at 14 years old going on 15. stringbean.

08 2007′, ’06 405

A fine afternoon hike in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area with a small group of folks that Howard assembled. Fantastic weather, occasional views of the City shimmering south across the Bay, groves of (relatively) small second-growth coastal redwoods, some huge manzanitas (this is their optimal zone) and good conversation.

first-responders on the way home last night. on the way back from checking out the local sonic scene and to meet Shannon and Rick for their solo performances at LanFranchis, a (the!) local alternative space — reminded me very much of FishBon in Santa Barbara except folks were smoking. also met Katherine, a creative writing student at UTS. the performances were good with a decent 5.1 sound system. it would have been nice to do a mix like I did for leplacard in helsinki two weeks ago. here’s an ambient mix from the evening.

make it to Bondi this morning after long transport delays.

other notes on the antipodes: clouds (definitely the wrong word!) of black fruit bats the size of fat and dumpy seagulls drift (definitely do not fly!) in the late twiLight airs above the treetops. a … disturbing … sight. not for its natural curiosities, but for the way the beasts move — as though they are in a drunken haze of meditative zen tranquility while moving across a space of thick gaseous vortices, all lying at the bottom of the sea. and me looking upwards.

the next note: so far, while the National Art Museum has a permanent exhibition of Aboriginal Art, I have seen only two drunk Koori around Kings Cross — near the 20-meter-high Coke advertisement. enough said. maybe dumb idea along with this Colonial geometry but I would like to get a decent didje for working the breath when next in desert lands.

The whole world was asleep. Everything was quiet, nothing moved, nothing grew. The animals slept under the earth. One day the rainbow snake woke up and crawled to the surface of the earth. She pushed everything aside that was in her way. She wandered through the whole country and when she was tired she coiled up and slept. So she left her tracks. After she had been everywhere she went back and called the frogs. When they came out their tubby stomachs were full of water. The rainbow snake tickled them and the frogs laughed. The water poured out of their mouths and filled the tracks of the rainbow snake. That’s how rivers and lakes were created. Then grass and trees began to grow and the earth filled with life. — Koori creation story

more note: in the water. for the first time in surf for a long time. body at first not responding, that combined with the size of the breaks. a few minutes conversation with a beach guard who is out in the break herding folks away from a rip. he says it’s a hell of a first day to visit Bondi — they were pulling people out all day, jet skis crashing through the foam heading out beyond the breaks to check on surfers, and hovering choppers. sets get up to 3 meters, look like even more occasionally. it’s a workout to get through even the secondary shore breaks which are easily at a meter-and-a-half. noticed the surf report online is in feet. old timers guarantee that maybe? great to be out there, though. damn. but no room for error. no body surfing, just stroking between breaks, diving deep under the curlers, and staying out of the way of anything turbulent.

day two. Elénore catches her plane from Strasbourg, but gets tangled in security at Charles de Gaulle, missing her Helsinki flight and so I am left with a two-hour morning conference panel to anchor solo at the Goethe institute. presenting the context of the workshop and the paper that I contributed to the Pixelache publication. it goes well. although there are skeptics in the back row. not vocal, but disturbing the atmosphere by talking during much of the talk/discussion. they make no direct critique of the propositions nor contribute to the lively discussion. boring people who do that.

at another point, a bit later, someone who was to show up at placard in Kiasma isn’t able to come, so, with a little chunk of open time in my schedule I jump into the corner hot-seat and do a one-hour impromptu mix for a handful of headphone-donning folks. the sun streaming in the window, I have a good view of the Parliament building as a source of rock-solid and cubic inspiration.

Erik (aka Mr. Placard) runs the multichannel headphone mixers, the stream, and keeps an eye on the irc channel.

then, there’s Manu & Mukul along with Indigo, their young boy. hanging around waiting for the screening of their film Faceless in the Kiasma Theater.

I notice a cluster of Amurikans on the platform in AmDam Ceentral Station, and then at Osnabrück, and then Münster. turns out they are 80% of the Grateful-Dead-inspired band, Dark Star Orchestra. on tour. the other 20% lost.

over to STEIM to meet with Taku to catch the scene there. quiet, and possible.

the inaugural KillerTV broadcast from the Pakhuis de Zwijger building with André Gringas goes really well. online participation was the highest ever, and the local scene was fantastic! ookoi does a live/online SL sound performance, Sher and Janine interview André and I. no extant archival stream footage is around yet (ex post facto), but I made some audio samples which are here remixed with other sounds from my visit to Amsterdam.

a tour around to the Netherlands Architectural Institute where Rod is gardening for the Edible City exhibition/installation (which happened to have some of the nice ceramic work by Piet Stockmans). Rod leads a wander through the old town, starting with Hell’s Gate, and on to Heaven for a few minutes where I chat with the head of the local growers cooperative.

the balance of the day is spent listening to, talking about Rod’s work, and the work of others who we know. an artist’s artist, Rod can’t be bothered to take any pause in making work and keep human connections running to worry about creating a web presence. though there is some of his work is on ubuweb, put up by a collaborator, Jesse Glass, as is a good wiki page, such a wealth of material would be an inspiration to a broader public, methinks.

a long day yesterday riding the rails from Kiel to Aachen, back into familiar spaces again there. a really nice but far too short visit with Günter, Christina, and Manon — who is now as tall as her mother! last time I saw her she was just a little child, maybe eight years ago?! lovely child. so, hanging out talking about books, art, life, music, so nice to re-connect after all this time.

re-creating the passage of time. young children grow up.

a leisurely breakfast with Christina, and she then drove me to the Hauptbahnhof for my train through Liege and on to Brussels Midi, a short walk to the hotel, where Dirk has faxed a three-day plan of meetings with a variety of artists, artist’s collectives, and educators working in that fuzzy space of new media. my room is not ready, so I stash my bag and start wandering towards the first agenda item: a round-table (albeit around a rectangular table) with two of the principles of LA[bau] — a laboratory for architecture and urbanism — Manuel Abendroth and Els Vermang.

a nice lunch (those dang baguette-sandwiches are always so crunchy that they cut the skin in my mouth at first, I forget to remember this and take care, flipping the sandwich over so that the smoother side of the baguette is up). but mmmm. on the way to lunch, however, a strange event. walking towards a building under reconstruction, a scaffolding is being set up, maybe four stories high at the moment. I catch the eye of a guy who is stacking parts to be hauled up on a cable winch, nothing unusual there. I am looking at the structure which looks somehow unstable. I decide to walk off the sidewalk instead of under the structure. I am looking up at the structure, calculating it’s condition. a pass it by, return to the sidewalk and hear a clang, then a meter in front of me a wrench, a heavy one, smashes to the ground. there is a group of 4 guys walking towards me about the same distance from the landing point as I am. faugh! how weird is that. I had the prior intuition something was wrong with the situation, and I can’t really say that the slight detour I made brought me closer or further away from my head intersecting with this tool which must have fallen from around 15 meters up. far enough up that is could easily have killed me or those other people.

so the rest of the day, I am watching things more carefully, but what difference does it make? if you look one way, you miss what is coming the other.

at any rate, they outlined their program and a couple of the main projects they have undertaking recently. tough to cross over my lack of background in architecture — it has always been a distant field of interest, but seldom the opportunity to crack the conceptual world that it is embedded in. the one time jumping in on a final critique with some of EJ’s students at Boulder was interesting — along with a surficial awareness of functionality in housing design — but does not provide any preparation for the contemporary conceptual spaces of inquiry. it does seem that innovative, and especially decorative design elements in architecture are about something. but the connection between the about-ness and what I would understand as the reason for the existence of architecture is not clear to me. but this is perhaps my own weakness combined with a deep frustration at the frequent appearance of non-functional design in built structures and in objects, for that matter.

at any rate, their work shows the presence of superior economic capital, and the consequent high production values which is nice. professional. sleek, designer, urban.

been in the desert too long, or, not long enough.

Crabbit
(cra-bit) dialect, chiefly Scot. – adj. 1. ill-tempered, grumpy, curt, disagreeable; in a bad mood [esp. in the morning]. (often used in ‘ken this, yer a crabbit get, so ye are’). n. by their nature or temperament conveys an aura of irritability. — drink coaster at Christina & Günter’s place

so, the market spirals down. while I travel. back to Kiel today, after a very late night at Martin’s where Anja teaches me:

Kopf hoch auch wenn der Hals dreckig ist.

(something like — keep your chin up when things are tough…)

the train is canceled, apparently there is a derailing between Bremen and Hamburg. so, after a wait in the Bremen Hauptbahnhof, catch a slow train to bus to slow train to Hamburg. then on to Kiel in a train car packed full of 10-year-olds. got some choice audio of that. soon to be online, but not now, too many bush fires to put out.

and so, last night was also a share:bremen meeting with Jan, Jürgen, Thomas, and Martin. Stefan from my Uni-Bremen workshops manages to drop in for a visit as well. we discuss the possibilities and histories of share:bremen, thinking ahead with workshop plans, and other actions.

finally meet Marc and Ruth of Furtherfield at the home of the HTTP gallery in northeast London. plenty of good gossip about the UK scene, some histories, making connections between events, names, and faces, and so on.

beds empty and so the party slowly ends, folks departing reluctantly from orbit around the Manor and each other. remarkable to participate in such a once-in-a-lifetime event. something bittersweet, not to return to the same time and place, ever, again. and while each Cartesian moment is never repeated, ever, there are some that more charged than others with the enlivened energy of life movement. the last three days were such times. an amazing constellation of people of all ages and sorts. and the constellation assembled by the Light and gravity of this one person. how that is. how that kind of dynamic evolves through a life lived in some completeness and open-heartedness. I make a long sonic redux of the four days…

made a series of group portraits as people departed the temporary manor-home. not catagoric, but it included a fair number of folks. still getting used to the Nikon, and becoming handicapped without bifocals. and cannot rely on the auto-focus device. but the eye enjoys the process.

food? leftovers did not include the main courses and deserts, all of which were delicious, thanks to Tanya (for directing the kitchen for dinner (for 45) on Friday — a fantastic chicken curry), and Duncan (dinner (for 75!) on Saturday — venison, mushroom gravy, gratin Dauphinoix, red cabbage, various green things, and truffle torte with raspberry sauce).

slow cool morning, a tour of the great studio that Mike & Isabelle have brought together. a walk to the creek, marveling at the trees, the rocks, the land.

It is vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is the bog in our brains and bowels, the primitive vigor of nature in us, that inspires that dream. I shall never find in the wilds of Labrador any greater wildness than in some recess of Concord, i.e., than I import into it. — Henry David Thoreau

hanging out with the family. Dana is the initial portrait for the New Year’s project — a return to the work that I dropped in the interim between stopping with black&white 35mm film-based and getting the new Nikon D200 SLR which makes that work once again possible. in between, a hiatus of six years, while having access to a variety of digital cameras, the serious lack of one critical feature made my work impossible. that feature is the near-instantaneous synchronization of the shutter — when the shutter-release button is pressed the shutter goes without hesitation. the D200 is the first digital cam that I’ve had where there is no delay. that millisecond delay in cheaper cams makes the difference between the picture and a wasted shot. it’s all about synchronicity between my eyes, the collaborative subject, and the mediatory machine.

Sandy, Kathy, Maureen, Jake, and Lon — hiking partners on a nice 6+ mile loop around Yeager Canyon in the Prescott National Forest.

on the way home there’s an ambulance heading out Williamson Valley Road when we come up Pioneer Parkway to the light. heading north out Williamson Valley to mile 5 there are some cars pulled over, the LifeLine ambulance crew unpacking the stretcher. not apparent quite what is going on but as we drive by a large heavy-set Latino guy drops from standing to squatting next to the crumpled front drivers fender, sobbing. so it goes.

it’s been ages since I’ve spent time checking out gridcosm — a SiTO project initiated by net amigos Ed Stasny and Jon Van Oast pushing a decade ago already. it’s getting very active again, as a new generation of SiTO artists have at it. I’m quite sure it’s the oldest and longest-running collaborative visual network project around. a singularly deep (literally!) visual essay on the past decade of network pop-being. or so. explore it! Jon and Ed are brilliant networkers and an inspiration to me over the years with their easy-going attitudes and intuitive insights into distributed creativity. last time I saw those guys in meat-space was in Montreal at the 1996 ISEA. Keep up the great work!

then, watching Slacker on DVD by Richard Linklater, appreciate the smoothness of film-making and a fluid and spontaneous anti-narrative:

… When young we mourn for one woman … as we grow old, for women in general. The tragedy of life is that man is never free yet strives for what can never be. The thing most feared in secret always happens. My life, my loves, what are they now? But the more the pain grows, the more this instinct for life somehow asserts itself. The necessary beauty in life is in giving yourself to it completely. — Joseph Jones, Slacker actor

Sarah, a former student from Boulder, has a show running between 09.23 – 11.16.2006 at Hooked on Colfax at 3215 East Colfax in Denver. couldn’t squeeze the opening into the schedule, but would highly recommend the show, I’m sure it’s interesting.

hanging out at the condo in the morning, then out into town for some cycling in the afternoon. funny to be hanging here, it’s been YEARS since the last time — with Collin during the 4th of July 1986(?). don’t have the negative scanned, but it was the location of the portrait Miss Liberty (a little girl dressed like the Statue of Liberty riding a trike in the 4th of July parade) that was used for the poster for the Niepce show.

Sharmin will hopefully augment this shot of Sonya with some of her ample photographic records of the long weekend’s adventures. later in the evening…

turns out that the Search By Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project — is a globally-deployed effort by an extraterrestrial intelligence to keep tabs on the human race…

long conversation with Chris and Scharmin. well, Scharmin dozes off in front of the fire part of the time. the cabin is such a comfortable space for hanging out with friends. Sonya and Alex have stored up magic memories of the place, the surroundings, and the magnificent physical environment it is nestled into. I wish Loki was here with us. somehow I am not completely convinced that his absence from the US this summer is simply due to the need for teenage companionship. but that cannot be substantiated.

no chance to use the telescope productively. there is enough overcast so that the sun cannot be seen well enough to make it worth it, and it is cloudy all three nights. not to mention too cold to be hanging out of doors for long periods when there is a warm bed to fill later after the stiff margarita to sip!

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.

and don’t ask how Christian unstuck his hand from the saguaro spines ;-) …