Archive for Ideas
December 28, 2008 at 2:37 pm · Filed under Ideas
I’m not sure I’ve ever quite thought about it concretely but I now know why I don’t wear sunglasses, why I have resisted owning an iPod or any equivalent and perhaps, too, tried to avoid a cellphone for a long time. It changes what you observe, how you observe and how much you observe.
That’s a word I have long used to describe myself - an observer. Long before i worked at my college newspaper, The Observer. I like to walk and observe everything around me. Observe through vision, smells and sounds. It’s living, it’s being a part of life rather than being apart from life.
I actually cried near the end of this April 2007 article, “Pearls Before Breakfast” - in the paragraph (fifth before end) that starts with a quote from subway pedestrian Stacy Furukawa: “It was the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen in Washington.
I am aware that many people can sound snobbish, and silly when they discuss their passions. For me I believe I can almost always tell when people are not sincere in what they are saying but say it because they are supposed to like fine wine or certain types of music (depending on their social circles) or whatever trend or anti-trend is popular.
But the article discusses beauty and philosophy, in both roundabout and direct ways.
I observe life, I struggle to transfer that observation to prolonged and coherent narratives in fiction. I can write down my simple observations, but that does seem, to me, to be achievement of any great stature. There’s no discipline, there’s just raw mental ablution. You have wiped the slate clean in writing it down; you no longer need to remember.
I think most often, this observation comes across and comes alive as empathy. I know a situation, I can frequently feel what all parties are feeling and I can try and placate and calm.
But none of that does much for me, where writing does. But I worry about others being able to understand my beauty, my observations, while simultaneously realizing that saying so can sound elitist, even snobbish.
As a reporter I am trained and understand the need to write for your audience; if you aren’t making yourself understood then you need to try harder. Except I was also told I needed to write to a fifth grade level, and well, clearly, I don’t want to write children’s books though I do want to stir the innocent child-like awe from adults.
September 28, 2008 at 11:04 am · Filed under Ideas
To throw an idea with great potential out like it’s nothing is a sin, but that’s what I’m going to do because this blog needs to be fruitful and multiply.
Religion. People believe. Largely, faith is a vehicle to pretend to answer the unanswerable questions. It becomes an anchor for many people, something to give them strength.
Differently for me, that’s not the issue I want to explore right now because truly I’m not interested in trying to convince anybody as I start typing and plan to stop in under 30 minutes, if not much more quickly.
God created man in his own image
Is faith directed in the right direction? Simply, that quote from Genesis dropped into my head, rolled around and dropped out again with the following thoughts attached.
What happens if the real faith that God wants is for us to have faith in each other? “God created man in his own image” seems to say, each of us is a God and we should believe or be able to believe in each other. That’s how we survive, that’s how we grow.
That’s the weight of it right there. But there are related, divergent questions.
If we have faith in each other we can create (re-create?) Heaven on Earth, which was Eden, the root of humanity and every other concept and tenet in Christianity. There’s the concept of a vault of Heaven but that vault would still be on earth, as a bank vault is a part of the structure around it.
“Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” and “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” Why is inheriting the Earth important at all unless it is more than merely the vehicle to a better place?
Is life on earth a preparation for Heaven? Yes or No? If so, the level of learning is described as almost non-existent. One merely has to believe in Christ to have an afterlife and anything else achieved on earth amounts to nothing?
That’s the way the Bible reads, unless you are supposed to have faith in man not God, and just as importantly, unless heaven is not another place, but is this place, where you sit right now.
What happens if the Bible was written by man as a “new age” book of the times. In other words, it’s not the word of God and God had nothing to do with it. It is man exhorting man. Interpretations of a religion propelled by humankind are not looked upon fondly by the structure of religion that appeals to a higher authority for its own authority. So people immersed - from baptism onward - in religion by their denomination will be weaker in many ways; starting with their faith energized in the wrong direction.
Think?
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
September 20, 2008 at 1:29 pm · Filed under Family & Friends & Me, Ideas, SAST-Pinball
I’ve just exhausted myself mentally out of writing productivity, except in this post where sprints are the reason. The reason why is at the end of the column.
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Canibus completely lost in that LL Cool J “diss exchange.” It seemed to me Canibus was criticizing LL Cool J for admitting to taking drugs. Hello, Canibus? Then Canibus also threw himsef in as the contender wanting to beat the better person and referenced reading LL Cool J’s books and noting his exercised and athletic body. That and Canibus just overall sounds like a whiner. I’d give him something if he sounded good but he doesn’t. In contrast, someone I’ve never heard of - Papoose - punches above his weight in throwing insults at everyone from Ice Cube to Snoop Dogg, to E40, to DMX to Capone to MC Wren to Will Smith, to Jay-Z to plenty of others. But he does it with style, specifics, spot-on humor, a kickin rhythm, and pulling in Jack Nicholson’s famous “A Few Good Men” quote
CHORUS:
if you’re fake you’re fake … real niggas know
if you’re wack, you’re wack … real niggas know
If you’re hot, you’re hot … real niggas know , the truth, the truth
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The guys and gals at Bakno Games have added a much needed feature to their pool and billiards games. I bought their pool game a couple of years ago because it seemed largely that what you aimed for got hit in the way you expected it to. But to keep it interesting, adding a competitive edge, you set up two players just to see what might happen. But if actually playing two players or you’re just aimlessly tooling around. burning time and relaxing, as I am when I rack em up (need to do it in bars more, cause I’m good) you don’t want to keep track of 1 game Temple 1, Jillyfan 2. It should do it automagically for you.
It didn’t, now a new version does. The game says it will also be including snooker and when it does that I’ll buy it. I won’t know because they aren’t clear whether a free update will include this. It’s a smallish company so I’m not sure they’re big on free upgrades ? Also, I have no idea why they call it billiards as I’m only able to play 9-ball in the demo.
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I’m a taste tester at my job as a Sprouts graphic designer (actual title, layout assistant but all three of the assistants assist each other, so. … ). Oh, a COMPLETELY UNOFFICIAL, COMPLETELY DISREGARDED taste-taster but nevertheless, the kitchen counters at Sprouts HQ are often scattered and sometimes teaming with products I’ve never heard of, and some that will never be sold there. It’s kind of fun. Even those that don’t make it, I imagine don’t for a variety of reasons; not only /always taste, but price, or likely interest from customers, or not healthy enough for our standards. And some, of course, ARE sold in other stores, and some I think we WILL actually sell, at some point. It’s kind of vague. Have I established I really don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to the process? Good.
As of Thursday, my mom’s birthday, I’ve been there a month. Yesssssss. So my first week there I had this scrummy (I can use that word, right?) curry energy bar from a company I now forget. They had a cumin flavored type, as well, but that had too much cumin and it just tasted like consuming mass quantities of the raw spice.
A couple of days ago I noshed down a Karma Pure Protein Bar, orange-cranberry-almond flavor, which was very good. This week after I was told these drinks that have been camped out in the back of the mini-fridge sitting right behind me since I arrived, were leftover samples I started drinking them. FRS healthy energy has two varieties I’ve tried. The orange tastes like medicine and isn’t too pleasant - to me at least. The Wild Berry version is styling though; very tasty. And those are the only two varieties I’ve tried.
Mango chutney was an option my second. I took the small bottle home and it’s very very very good. You have to try hard to mess up mango chutney because it’s just one of those foods that even when it’s bad it’s good (Mango chutney chocolate pizza?? Ok, perhaps not). I knew it from living in England and my parents taking us out to a variety of restaurants.
I’m a very un-picky eater, which isn’t to say I don’t have my definite likes and dislikes, my slurps and my shuns, but I am loathe to waste food and - of the the things I try - I rarely hate anything. I just sometimes know i’ll never willingly eat it again when there are so any other options out there.
Yesterday there was slightly more on the counters than usual. I had a Steaz energy drink. “Organic fuel, vegan and organic rated, made with “Fair-trade certified” green tea. 12 oz cans, I could’ve happily drained a 36 oz can - especially yesterday after the night before when i only slept about an hour.
Then today I had two kinds of embodi drinks. I was told by a couple of people - AGAIN, BY THOSE WHO AREN’T AT ALL BUYERS OR TASTERS - that they weren’t good. Billed as “all the benefits of red wine without the alcohol” - WHA?!?! I hear you cry - I liked them, as well. True, they have a dry (as in wine) taste and leave a slight film around your teeth ands mouth, but that quickly goes away. I can understand why some might not like them. Packed with antioxidants. Also I’ve tried two varieties and there’s a third i have with me; i got them mostly for the bottlecaps, which I collect.
Then there’s the pizza yesterday - made in that kitchen for a picture for the Sprouts flier and different kinds of turkey slices. Man, I’m starting to gain a little weight, just as I was losing it rapidly!!! Then on top of that, there’s the deli downstairs in the building - independently owned and serves all the building’s tenants. They have, that I’ve discovered so far, a nice run in smoothies and wraps.
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Based on this - Dee at Desicritics wrote this - about a writer’s need to bare their soul. I left a lengthy comment and sometime this weekend I’ll post it in altered and expanded (sorry) form here. But it wasn’t a love letter!!! :-O
August 16, 2008 at 11:30 am · Filed under I Wrote It, Ideas, Quote
When you take away options, stranger things happen.
That’s the quote that came at the end and the takeaway from my dream earlier this morning that ended about two minutes ago. It involved several different scenes, this dream, but ultimately it seemed to be about making a person more deperate as he was hounded and accused and victimized by the people around him, the people closest to him; except for his parents. Though even them too as he could detect they expected absolutely nothing out of him anymore except survival. And at times, they thought perhaps that too was making his life worse.
It involved a grown man being late for school and classes; but miles upon miles to walk.
This man, this person constantly assailed, nevertheless walked by both a grimy, oiled quarter on the ground, then a shinier nickel a little farther up the hill, knowing kids who walked the same path would get more joy out of the discovery.
It involved me, or someone I thought for awhile was me, sitting in a car with my laptop, the one I currently own, the one I’m currently typing into. Someone else had carried it, walking away from the house, still typing away. And the WiFi had lasted an extraordinarily long time but at the corner, it ended and the guy carrying the laptop had to turn around. But, in the nature of dreams, with seamless yet also abrupt merge, it was me, suddenly in the car, in front of a strange house, with the plug cord snaking out across the sidewalk but only because it was snagged on something in the round-top cement wall. It seemed I was doing some kind of surveillance, discovery for someone else. It felt like it was on the right side of the law, or at least the right side of justice, trying to find the truth no one else was looking for.
Trying to return someone’s options.
It involved a hippy looking guy in a nice car, a Skylark or an Oldsmobile of some kind pulling into a parking spce in front of me, only then to imediately pull out again, or start to before seeing me walk behind him. I said something mildly uncomplimentary to him, but only mildly, after all he had stopped without me having to shout.
My brother walked out of jail, with two swollen bumps on his side, near his hips. He was shirtless. There was another bump on his forehead and a cut on his lower face. Except it was my face. Except I knew it was my brother. And I knew he wanted to tell me what had happened to my glasses, which were supposed to be on his face. No, my face.
He was about 10 people back in a very narrow corridor. I, he, was about a head taller than everyone else, as we often are, and people were being released. He’d only been there overnight, or maybe a couple of days. There was only doubt, I thought in my dream, because the cuts seemed to be fresh but healed as if they had happened a little while ago. But as he walked through it was my face and he walked past me with a small smile, ready to explain but knowing now wasn’t the best place. He stopped a little farther on as I let him walk past me and seemed to either insert or take something from a column in the wall.
There was tension in the city, though I don’t know where, and something was about to happen. But then I woke up, so it didn’t.
July 27, 2008 at 10:37 am · Filed under Ideas, Social Media
Whew. Wow. Mind Blowing. I Want To Do That Again And Again And Again.
Revolver.
Evolver.
Problem Solver?
People, we all have questions. Many. Thousands. The protein strands of the chain of life aren’t as connected as the string of questions that can lead from a simple “Y”, ah “why?”
“If a particle does not have a defined location until it is observed, does that mean there is nothing if nobody’s looking? Anyone?”
Those type of questions come bubbling to the service. It’s not either / or. It’s not multiple choice. It’s the type of question that can’t help but lead to more. Definitions, sure, but also the pandemic application into every area of life.
The late evening musing pushes areas of your brain that remain lax during the daily routine of survival. But for those who also think, these types of questions are also an important par of survival, or at least of retaining sanity. The expansion into the brain, at least, proves there is MORE than the daily routine and that’s why they’re important. In essence, too, these type of questions are open to interpretation and so are the basis of creativity.
And then there’s sex. Remember that for later.
So if you pondered that blocked quote up there for a while you are repeating what went on last night. And what did you come up with? Let me attempt a re-creation where you can see three basic ideas rising to the surface. With three people replying back and forth, here’s what followed at the time:
Read the rest of this entry »
July 19, 2008 at 4:21 am · Filed under Ideas, Music
I appear to have a long-standing fascination with the cello, and for some reason it re-established itself very recently - in just the past week.
Long-standing in the sense that about the first music I bought after we moved to England was Julian Lloyd Webber’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini - for violin (24th Caprice). (Written by his more famous brother). I have NO idea why. An excerpt of it was the music to The South Bank Show with Melvin Bragg. But I’m not sure I was into that program as a 12-year-old.
Even if that’s where I heard it I really have no idea what motivated me to actually walk down to the music store, next to the small store in East Croydon where they sold Cadbury’s Creme Eggs, something else I had just discovered, and buy it. Since I was new in England pretty much everything was a discovery.
I played that tape to death for a good solid month at least. I have it still, though haven’t played it in years, In fact I’d completely forgotten about it. Until earlier this week. On July 9 I started an article here contemplating a cello suite prelude.
And I found that piece because I remembered, though I’ve never sought to listen to classical music, I loved the sound of the cello. In searching, I found that prelude.
MELANCHOLY TIPS ITS HAT
The cello to me has warmth, and a deep bravado of listening purpose. The vibrations of its large strings resonate through each other and bring forward a sound that welcomes engagement.
With that same welcoming gesture of sound comes, too, a simultaneous push away. Read the rest of this entry »
July 9, 2008 at 5:49 am · Filed under Ideas
Backward-thinking on time travel
As I listen over and over again to Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 prelude, I’m wishing it was longer. It is, after all though, a prelude, still though quite timeless. The composition bears a warm sound, one that washes over like hot water as you slide down up to your chin in a bath on a cold cold day. The prelude is sparse, naked, too and, like bath water its pleasurable warmth ends much too quickly.
It’s a duo-synchronistic companion thought to the post I have planned ever since Monday, when I read a passage from H.G. Wells’ 1895 story, The Time Machine, which, appears up to this point, to have launched quite a few billion stars. At least I think it was Monday, one does so easily lose track of time:
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June 30, 2008 at 2:43 am · Filed under Ideas
When a person contemplates the deliberate murdering of a man, when he imagines the sensations - the sounds, the resistance, the facial expressions - it is inevitable that he can only find himself examining life. If you do not, then you are capable of cold-blooded murder.
