Overflow

Come See Me

2003-08-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

I've Moved.

See you on the other side.

2003-08-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

With the help and patronage of my H-Town Blogs friend Matt, I am rehosting my blog and converting it to his new snazzy blogging tool called WordPress.

(Yes, I know what I said about supporting a tool that enables free access to web publishing for the masses and all. But since Google bought Blogger, I figure my support does not make that much difference anymore. They'll do fine without my annual fees.)

I've been to this point a relative luddite in the blog world, but with all the keeno features of this new tool, maybe I'll step up and look like a "This Year's Model" blog. Maybe. I kind of like being behind the times.

So I'll be gone for a few days fixin up the new bigger better digs.

How about one that says "Clean Up After Yourself!" ?

2003-07-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

If you are a parent, you must see this -- Guerilla Parenting (via web zen)

Intentions

2003-07-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

I watched "The Razor's Edge" again last night, one of my favorite films of all time. Larry Darrell is one of my favorite characters of all time. (In my daydreams my character is some kind of Larry Darrell/Lloyd Dobler blend. Well, they're *my* daydreams.)

There was a scene in The Razor's Edge where Larry was in India speaking to a man washing dishes in the river. The man told Larry that washing dishes was a religious experience for him and that sort of impressed Larry, which I guess is why Larry followed this man up to the monastery on the mountain later in the movie.

What hit me most was the exchange they had that went something like:

Larry: "I worked in a mine for two years to come here."
Dish Man: "You worked in a mine? What was your intention?"
Larry: "To make money so I could come here to India."
Dish Man: "That was your reason, but what was your intention. Without intention, it was just an empty action."

Later that night, several things clicked. (Here's where Cody finally clues into what must be the obvious for many readers out there.)

In my life, action without intention, or with wrong intention, is just as much a problem, maybe more so, than good intentions with no (or bad) actions. I always thought my problem was simply a lack of proper attention. Turns out nothing is so simple.

Take, for instance, my cake failure the other night. It occurred to me that part of the problem was wrong intention. By that time on Sunday night, I was making the cake grudgingly out of obligation -- I said I would do it -- and I figured I might as well try out a new recipe while I was at it. A better intention would have been simply to honor my friend. Had I the right intention, would I have paid more attention and would the cake have turned out better? Just maybe.

Monday night, Girlzilla and I baked pretzels from scratch. She had been begging us to stop and buy pretzels at the store so we could have a snack. We made them at home instead. They turned out great. My intention in the process was to spend time with my daughter, teach her a bit about baking biochemistry ("Bread rises because of yeast farts" -- try that line on your preteen), and to give her the experience of pride in making something for herself that she's used to buying at the store. At the end all the intentions were fulfilled and the pretzels were good. Intentions do make a difference.

So this ties in my recent meditations on skillfulness with something I wrote a few months back about the source of my errors in making art. I had characterized my errors in my art as ones of ignorance, frustration, and inattention. Now I can add one more source to the list -- wrong intention.

Well, hey, it's news to me at least. I am a work in progress. Yep, a real piece of work.

Coffee with Chili Oil Surprise

2003-07-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

This recipe will please chili heads and coffee snobs alike. It took me a while to reconstruct events that led to this tasty discovery. Unorthodox as it sounds, it's pretty good!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Fresh Ground Coffee
2 cups filtered water
1 tsp chili oil (in plastic container with snap-on lid)
Sugar
Creamer

Instructions:

1. Remove chili oil container from Chinese takeout bag and place in desk drawer for later use. Make sure that the chili oil is next to your "Coffee Sock" (or other reuseable fabric coffee filter ).
2. Rummage around in desk drawer. Stir contents vigorously.
3. Allow at least a week for fabric in Coffee Sock to soak up chili oil that spilled on the bottom of the drawer.
4. Throw away empty chili oil container. Forget about chili oil completely.
5. Heat water to boiling point. Don't allow water to come to a rolling boil.
6. Put fresh ground coffee in Coffee Sock. Pour boiling water into Coffee Sock, holding the sock over a coffee mug. Allow all water to drip through the grounds into the mug. Discard the wet grounds.
7. Add sugar and creamer to taste. Stir until dissolved.

Serving suggestions:

Allow enough time between steps 3, 4, and 5 to make your first cup a "why is my tongue burning?" puzzling coffee treat!

Bad Art Night

2003-07-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

Our game of One Thousand Blank White Cards last month was a success. It was a truly Creative Conversation. People left with ideas of their own for Creative Conversation nights. At least one 1KBWC follow-up night is being kicked around. That was exactly the idea for the whole Creative Conversations franchise.

So how to follow that? I'm stealing an idea from a friend's art magazine -- Bad Art Night. (Apparently it's not a new idea, but it's new in this corner of the burbs.)

In this world of sophisticated design at the click of a mouse, when you can get slick design with your coffee at Starbucks, when even the liquid soaps at Target are designed by designers like Todd Oldham and Michael Graves, the world needs more bad art. It's a depressing world where our cheese graters are hipper than we are.

So, we need some personal-level art, some non-professional art, some really bad art. A recent Utne article by David Byrne calls for more Bad Art for the exact same reason. Who am I to refuse the man who introduced me to blip-hop?

I'm not so much interested in propagating the Bad Art aesthetic as I am interested in freeing up people to be creative. People don't think they have to have professional skills to go running or play softball, but they won't try their hand at art because they don't have "talent." I want to give people a night where they have permission to have no talent. And then reap the conversation that sprouts up among people being newly creative among other newly creative people.

So mark your calendars:

Creative Conversations: Bad Art Night
Kenny J's Coffe House
Corner of Kirby and Nasa Rd. 1
Wednesday, August 13th
7:00-10:00

Open yourself up to new ideas, new people, new modes of relating. And possibly new futures for yourself and your local community.

Mornin' George...

2003-07-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

I'm showing my age here, but maybe you gen x'ers will know what I'm talking about.

Remember those old cartoons with the sheep dog, the one whose orange bangs hung down over his eyes, and the wolf played by Wile E. Coyote? You know how they'd punch into a timeclock with lunchboxes in hand and say, "Mornin' George." "Mornin' Ralph." And then they'd spend the day with the wolf trying to steal the sheep and the sheep dog beating the crap out of the wolf? And then they'd clock out when the whistle blew at the end of the day (usually in mid-beating) and say "Goodnight George." "Goodnight Ralph."?

Yeah, that's the one. So, I have a question:

Who *paid* those two? What kind of messed-up company sets its own employees up to such mutually-frustrating job descriptions?

Which brings me to my next question:

Does it ever seem to you like you work for that company?

Just wondering.

Beware the chocolate chip toothpick test trap!

2003-07-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

I violated a basic rule.

Never try a new recipe on anyone but yourself or your family.

I almost went out and bought a mix. By the time I remembered tonight that I promised to make a cake for a coworker's birthday tomorrow, there was not enough time to make either my chocolate cheesecake or my Uber-rich chocolate celebration cake. I was tempted to try a mix. Just do it and get it out of the way.

But Jan's a long time friend and she's made cakes for me in the past, so I figured the occasion called for more than a mix. El Scratcho Cake-o. So I tried this new recipe for Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake from one of my wife's "trade magazines" like Good Housekeeping or some such.

Anyway the cake turned out drier than I had wanted. Probably tastes perfectly fine, but I had envisioned something gooey and decadent. Something that would make folks say "Ohmigod" as they clamored for a glass of milk. This is not omigod cake. This is sensible cake. At least the dark chocolate sour cream frosting is good.

As I was frosting the cake, I realized my mistake. I probably overcooked the cake because the toothpick kept coming out brown. So i mistakenly thought it needed more time. What I forgot -- a lesson I had learned the hard way on previous cakes and apparently forgot -- is that the toothpick will not come out clean if you have chocolate chips or bits in the batter. Damn.

I failed to refactor the chocolate chip toothpick test trap into my cake making knowledge base. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Oh, bother.

2003-07-26T04:08:00.000-07:00

"Regarding one's own personal needs, there should be as little involvement or obligation as possible. But regarding service to others, there should be as many possible involvements and obligations as possible. This should be the ideal of a spiritual person.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama"

Which reminds me of my favorite definition of Love, which I attribute to our friend Winnie Honeywell, who happens to be director of our diocese's Family Life Office:

"Love means being bothered for the sake of another."

Which reminds me of an old 10,000 Maniacs song:

"Trouble me. Disturb me with all your cares and your worries"

So does that mean that Love is a big pain in the ass, albeit a happy one? C'mon, bother me.

Is Skillfulness loopy?

2003-07-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

More on skill:

"The fact that skills can be developed implies that action is not
illusory, that it actually gives results. Otherwise, there would be no such
thing as skill, for no actions would be more effective than others. The fact of
skillfulness also implies that some results are preferable to others, for
otherwise there would be no point in trying to develop skills. In addition, the
fact that it is possible to learn from mistakes in the course of developing a
skill, so that one's future actions may be more skillful, implies that the cycle
of action, result, and reaction is not entirely deterministic, and that acts of
perception, attention, and intention can actually provide new input as the cycle
goes through successive turns."

-- Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Wings to Awakening Part 1-A

Action, result, and reaction. Perception, intention, and attention. I feel a causal loop diagram coming on... Or at least a mind map.

The Buddha is addressing here the meta-skill of acquiring skillfullness. It seems to be a feedback loop that adjusts future action based on the results of previous actions, informed by perception and intention. All of these make a classic Systems analysis problem.

Attention doesn't seem to fit *in* the system. Attention seems to *be* the system. Attention is the prerequisite to the fact that you are examining your actions at all. One cannot be skillful and mindless at the same time. Perception and intention are themselves forms of attention, albeit to internal and external states, and act as inputs to the causal loops of Skillfulness.

At least that's how it seems to me. What is the difference then? Is Skillfulness just the application of attention to action?

HHIF, Y'all.

2003-07-25T06:47:00.000-07:00

That stands for "Ho Hum, It's Friday." Y'all.

I don't look forward to Fridays. I am not a "workin' for the weekend" kind of guy. Weekends are just not that special to me.

I may go to bed a few hours later and then turn off the alarm and let the kids wake me up the next morning. But it's the same amount of sleep. I don't go off to my job, but weekends mean a work of a different kind. Entertaining little kids and a caring for a household is work. Usually those tasks that can't be taken care of during the week are left to the weekends. Different kind of work, but more work.

Not that I don't like being around my family. I look forward to it. But I just don't greet Fridays with that "TGIF" joie de vivre.

Besides, when we want to have fun and go on a date, Heidi and I are just as likely to go out during the week as any. We don't wait for the next weekend. When we need to get away, we get away. And we prefer the "off-peak" mode -- visiting all the places you folks crowd into on the weekend at off times when y'all aren't there.

And I don't engage in any recreational activities that I have to "sleep off" later. So I don't need the weekend time structure -- where you stay up late and sleep late to compensate -- to allow me to pursue any social activities involving controlled doses of self-destructive indulgence. Our average date starts at, say, 5:30 and ends at 10:30. I hear tell from my partying friends that 10:30 p.m. is when the fun's just getting started. I wouldn't know, myself.

I like it that way. For me, time has a quiet, happy, mundane continuity to it. I don't divide my experience into five days of indentured servitude followed by two days of recreation. It's all an illusion, this concept we call the weekend.

And, best of all, I don't dread Mondays.

Bad Beans

2003-07-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

I meant well. I'd let my Lola Savannah beans run out without a new order, so I needed some at-work coffee. I had romantic pretensions of shedding my snobbery when it comes to coffee. That's why I picked up a package of Eight O'Clock Coffee beans this morning.

I got this idea from my recent dalliances with cheap but serviceable brands of beer. I've recently tried Pabst Blue Ribbon and Miller High Life. They aren't as good as the fashionable microbrews I usually buy, but they are a good value in the taste to cost ratio. They're half as cheap but they're better than half as good.

Mixed in there is my romantic pretension that I could rid myself of pretension and snobbery. That I could quaff the brew of the working man, the man's man. People who build stuff in the Texas heat drink this kind of beer. This isn't "retire to the pub for a pint of stout" beer, this is a "down a cold one in extended gulps to extinguish thirst and heat, rivulets of overflow beer mingling with beads of sweat on your jowls" kind of beer. "Wipe your sweaty brow with the back of your hand while you drink" kind of beer.

And, faced with similar conditions last week, I found that Pabst and Miller make a decent thirst-quencher beer for a much nicer price. (I had to ignore the sudden urge to go watch NASCAR, though.)

And so I thought that idea could be extended to coffee. The cheaper beans stood on the grocery shelf right next to the Starbucks brand, their $3.97 price card mocking me and my trend-conscious coffee snob self. It said, "You know most of Starbuck's extra cost is just brand and marketing. Their beans are trucked in from Seattle, my beans are trucked in from New Jersey. You'll be paying four dollars extra for Seattle." So I gave New Jersey a try.

I've always held the view that a smart coffee snob should be more of a snob about the *way* coffee is made. If you have fresh roasted and ground beans, clean water, clean equipment, and a good brewing process, then the provenance of the beans is a secondary matter. That's always held up for me in the past.

But it only works up to a point. Perfect coffee process cannot save just plain bad beans. And this was just plain bad coffee.

My romantic notion of having rediscovered a forgotten coffee value -- a quotidian coffee, pedestrian but serviceable, a coffee that was good enough for your grandpa -- was gone after the first half cup.

Your grandpa didn't know Starbucks, apparently. And if your grandpa had access to the miracle that is Lola Savannah, he would have plowed under those Eight O'Clock Coffee beans in his vegetable garden as compost.

Skillfulness

2003-07-23T06:56:00.000-07:00

Looking into the idea of Skill as a practical expression of spirituality, I came across an anthology of Buddha's teachings translated by this dude Thanissaro Bhikkhu called Wings to Awakening. Apparently the Buddha was foresightful enough to organize his most important teachings for those who would be left behind to write them down. Mighty considerate of him. He made lots of lists -- the five strengths, the four right exertions, the seven factors for awakening, the eightfold path, etc. -- in which he gave a structure to his teachings. People like lists. I like lists.

(Was Buddha the first Knowledge Management expert?)

So, at the base of this structue, along with Karma (which is a downright practical principle if you grasp it correctly), is the concept of Skillfulness.

(Okay, you Buddhists, I'm aware that I'm presenting centuries old wisdom as if it is new. Please bear with this clueless Christian as I discover this for myself. Feel free to chuckle smugly at my naivite.)

"The fact that each side advanced an interpretation of reality implied that both agreed
that there were skillful and unskillful ways of approaching the truth, for each insisted that the other used unskillful forms of observation and argumentation to advance its views. Thus the Buddha looked directly at skillful action in and of itself, worked out its implications in viewing knowledge itself as a skill -- rather than a body of facts"
---- Bhikku, Wings to Awakening, Part 1-A

The Buddha was not very concerned with beliefs in Gods or metaphysics or cosmology, he was concerned in how those beliefs played out into everyday experience. He was more concerned with the actions of people who are motivated by belief and wanted to make those actions more skillful. His teachings, in other words, are for Christians too. The Buddha does not want to change my beliefs, just make my use of them bear more fruit.

I've been looking for a spiritual practice that produces results and looking for the motivation to produce more results myself. Skillfulness appears to be that integrative principle that joins intention, attention, knowledge, action, learning, theory, and applications and informs them all by looking at actual, honest to God, real world results.

Maybe I could leave eighth grade after all. Maybe I can skip ninth grade and go to trade school?

Skill

2003-07-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

"If one wants to know emptiness, how should one do it?" "The one
who wants to realize emptiness should adore reality, develop a skill in living
in the world, and cultivate friends of the same mind. Skill can only be
developed in the presence of reality, not otherwise. Endowed with skill, the
person gives without the idea of a giver and lives in the realization that all
the factors of existence have no ultimate substance."

-Prajnaparamita

I'm still contemplating these words, but the concept of "skill" resonates with me. It is a one word answer to one of the questions that has been keeping me up at night lately. Skill marries learning and action. It joins study and practice. It is acquired through theory and application. And it usually results in some sort of product or tangible benefit. Skill is not just conceptual, not just talk.

Skill requires a balance between the very modalities of being I have been struggling to integrate lately -- acting and thinking. It seems to be a sign post pointing me somewhere promising. I'll let you know where it leads. When I figure it out that is.

All I know is that for several days I have been thinking that, if I went back to school, acquiring a trade sounds more attractive than getting another academic degree. I've been wanting to learn something useful. I 've been wanting to *be* more useful.

Being a table.

2003-07-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

Reading Real Live Preacher's latest entry reminds me that I need to update my sidebar links. He's a must link.

The entry is brilliant and spoke directly to my heart. It's as if the Big Guy, knowing what my state was this weekend, had spoken to me directly:

"I got that crappy church catalog in the mail. Thumbing through it kicked up the disillusionment and depression that is always lurking just below my surface. It seemed to me that the church was nothing more than an institution. It seemed to me that the memory of Christ was very far away.

(snipped for brevity and fair use) ......

And I learned something in all of this that will help me the next time I let myself get depressed over something as silly as a bad table and a catalog.

If the wafers are going stale for you, be the bread yourself. Break yourself open and nourish the world.

If the communion table seems cheap and tacky, become a table yourself. Straighten your legs and flatten your back. Become a resting place for the weary."

Too freekin brilliant. Indeed, RLP has done just that for me by being open to share his own disillusionment. His blog has been a resting place for my weary soul.

I love the Internet.

Marriage Links

2003-07-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

So after some rest, finishing my current fiction book, and gaining some emotional distance, I realize how grumpy I sounded yesterday about our retreat.

It's wasn't hardly that bad. In fact it was very good.

It is in my nature (human nature) to focus on the two or three detractors instead of the thirty-five or so couples who worked hard and were affected positively by the communication space we opened up for them. As I said on the weekend repeatedly, the cycle of romance/disillusionment/acceptance applies to all relationships, including areas of one's life, like work and ministry.

I guess for me it was more like disillusionment/acceptance/romance, but I came around eventually.

So if you're coming around my site from the weekend retreat, welcome. You were probably one of the best couples there, right? Of course!

I promised you a bodacious blog-a-licious bounty of resource links for further exploration into the process of preparing for marriage:

The Marriage Movement -- a blog that keeps up on the latest policy and research news concerning marriage and family. This is the bleeding edge stuff. I'm less interested in the policy and politics stuff than I am the research. Good source for keeping current on the latest marriage research.

SmartMarriages -- Smartmarriages is probably the most happenin' organization in the marriage field today. It's a coalition of marriage therapists, educators, and religious leaders who are very pro-marriage. Theirs is an atrociously-designed website with a large number of very good resources, articles, tools, quizzes, and references to marriage education providers. Have some patience with this site and your explorations will be rewarded. (Tip: subscribe to the SmartMarriages mailing list and you'll have the bleeding edge delivered to your inbox on a regular basis.)

Here's the SmartMarriages articles page that has links to articles of just about every flavor. And when you're done with that, you can seek out the books on the SmartMarriages books page.

So there's the tip of a huge mountain of information about marriage and relationships. Maybe more than you want. I know I promised you a bodacious bounty of links right here on my page, but why reinvent it if it's already sitting out there? Think of these as your "base camp" from which you can continue your marriage education journey on the Internet.

Don't ever stop preparing for your marriage. Even after the wedding and beyond.

And if you need any specific information or want to talk. I am always right here (and Heidi too).

Shut up and show up.

2003-07-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this after a pretty tiring weekend. Another Engaged Encounter weekend followed immediately by teaching Sunday School in the evening to Junior High aged kids. Phew.

I'm happy to have a chance to finally reflect and decompress. As usual, I started Friday night not wanting to be there. Giving up a whole weekend nowadays seems like a big sacrifice in the weeks building up to one of these retreats. I can always tell by the looks on the faces of the couples when we start the retreat which people feel like I do -- they can think of lots of ways they'd rather be spending the weekend.

If I were less responsible, I'd walk up to one of them some time when the weekend is starting and comiserate, "Man, I know. I don't want to be here either." But I don't because I shouldn't. I'm supposed to be one of the leaders after all. Being the leader can suck sometimes.

And then later on during the weekend some things were going on that made me feel like things weren't going well. Some couples were giving me distinct signals that they were not pleased with the retreat. So by Saturday afternoon I was building up a big case of Bad Attitude. Being the leader can suck sometimes.

And then it hit me. Actually Heidi pointed it out to me gently in our sharing. This isn't about me. God doesn't care what I'd rather do with my weekend. He wanted me here. And it is not my job to ensure the quality of the weekend and that every couple is pleased. That's God's job. I'm not the leader; God is.

My job is to just show up, do my part faithfully, and turn the rest over to her. In other words, practice some of what we preached on the weekend.

And alas when I did, in prayer, offer my attitude up to God, he answered me. The weekend went well. My pessimism was disconfirmed. And I had some very meaningful dialogue with my wife. So it was a renewing experience for me and, as far as I could tell, good for the couples as well.

I need to learn to shut up, show up, and let God do his thing. I guess that's why we go on retreats, huh?

Beautiful Poem

2003-07-20T03:08:00.000-07:00

"Opening Words"

I believe the earth
exists, and
in each minim mote
of its dust the holy
glow of thy candle.
Thou
unknown I know,
thou spirit,
giver,
lover of making, of the
wrought letter,
wrought flower,
iron, deed, dream.
Dust of the earth,
help thou my
unbelief. Drift
gray become gold, in the beam of
vision. I believe with
doubt. I doubt and
interrupt my doubt with belief. Be,
beloved, threatened world.
Each minim
mote.
Not the poisonous
luminescence forced
out of its privacy,
The sacred lock of its cell
broken. No,
the ordinary glow
of common dust in ancient sunlight.
Be, that I may believe. Amen.

-- Denise Levertov

Dissonance

2003-07-16T06:16:00.000-07:00

Another story I would have blogged last month had I not been on my Self-Imposed Hiatus was this story about 'inexplicable mobs' in NYC which caught the eye of the SmartMobs crowd. This reminds me of the Guerilla Masquerade Party group that I read about on Fleming Funch's blog in May.

And all that reminded me of this post I made in May of 2002 longing for something just like that here in the burbs. Something to punctuate the blandness of our corner of suburbia. (Part of the post -- my Suburban Dissonance Manifesto -- I've re-posted below.)

It was a pipe dream for which I had dare not hoped. A vision of social capital gone discordian at a time when I had little social capital and even less time and energy to make something happen. I had envisioned something a bit like a kinder and gentler version of Hakim Bey's idea of Poetic terrorism or a suburban-friendly flavor of the stuff the Principia Discordia is selling.

Nothing confrontational or illegal, which Hakim Bey seems to have no problem with. People these days are not intrigued by the extraordinary if it incites suspicion or fear. And no pretensions to mock theology or ideology or any other ology like in the Principia. Just a group of people who do different stuff to pierce the bland autopilot mode of most subrban dwellers if only for a few seconds. If only to make us all more aware of the blessings in this priviledged suburban space we take for granted.

Something like... Well, here:

suburban dissonance manifesto
(from May, 2002)

celebrate suburbia
embrace the Multiplex, the Minimart
love the pot luck dinner, the Chinese Buffet
appreciate esplanades and jogging trails
hug a soccer mom

celebrate suburbia, but
don't make it your world
don't take the Master Plan too seriously
don't sway to its rhythms

Instead, keep yourself a step off the beat.
Sing a little off key.
Create some dissonance.

Have a drum circle in a local park.

Get 50 people, all dressed alike,
go stand by the fountain at the mall.
When anyone asks you what group you're with,
say you don't know these people.

Put poetry and art on local bulletin boards.

Adopt a convenience store. Buy the clerks lunch.

Hop the local shuttle bus with your friends.
Ride for a few hours. Sing bus riding songs.
Bonus points if you sing in harmony.

Get some brooms and sweep through town. Literally.

Make fingerpaint murals. Invite passers-by to help.

Make people look twice.
Make people think
and laugh at themselves.

Give them something funny to share
over breadsticks at the Olive Garden.

Be peaceful. Be respectful. But be weird.
Get all the necessary permits, but don't seek approval.

Let people stare. Make them wonder.
Cultivate funny looks.

Consider this an invitation. For what? Hell, I don't know. That's the point.

Oh Mamaaaaa.....

2003-07-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

Condemned man... singing to his momma.... merciless law enforcement... men singing in harmony with high pitched voices...

Styx's song "Renegade" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" could have been written about the same dude.

Just an observation.

Better late...

2003-07-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

Wow. I finally got around to reading Real Live Preacher's blog for the first time yesterday. His is really good stuff. I guess this is news to no one but me, huh?

Now I think I'll check out that Seinfeld show that everybody says is pretty funny.

The path to Conversational Wisdom

2003-07-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

If you are a man or a woman, please read this article by linguist Deborah Tannen. It's about conversational rules and goals men and women follow and why many communication problems between the sexes are totally unnecessary.

Theodore Zeldin's book "An Intimate History of Humanity" turned me on to Tannen's conversational analysis and Veronica turned me on to Zeldin and Kurt turned me on to Veronica's site, who I think I found by following a link from Rebecca Blood's illustrious blog.

I love the Internet.

You Can't Go Home Again, Part II

2003-07-15T03:40:00.000-07:00

I went to my 20th high school reunion. I came out completely unaffected either way. I stuck to my rules. I did not try to impress anyone and I don't think anyone was impressed.

There were 720 people in my graduating class. People walked across the stage at my graduation ceremony that I had never seen before let alone talked to. I'd say a few hundred of them were at the reunion. Thank God for nametags.

About fifteen minutes into the affair I gave up trying to pretend I remembered everybody. I decided I'd use "How did we know each other? I barely remember *going* to High School in the first place." as my line to laugh off the awkwardness. Faces looked familiar, but, except for the few that were in my direct crowd back then, that's where it ended for me.

As for people being older, fatter, balder, and wrinklier -- no dice. The beautiful popular people back then are still beautiful and popular today. The difference was that I had less of a problem with not being one of them. Good for them. They've managed to hold onto their looks. I just hope it doesn't cost them too much over time.

The whole thing reminded me of one of those big courtly dances where everyone is out on the floor doing the same steps and switching off with other dancers. You'd catch someone's eye and do a litlle "Catching Up" promenade:

"How are you doing?"
"Where are you located now?"
"What do you do nowadays?"
"Do you have any kids?"
"Is there a Mr./Mrs. Doe?

Then time to switch for another dosi-do with another old face from your past.

The event was rather cheesy. One of those package things organized by a service. Union DJ, overpriced cash bar, noisy crowded location, not enough of the reheated canapes to go around. I guess that wasn't the point, but I'd have liked to have had at least a couple of meatballs for my $45.

I did have fun though. It was nice to put on a tie and go out on a dress-up date with my wife. I caught up with some people I liked and talked to some people who I forgot I liked so much.

But mainly I can say I went. I will never in my life have to explain why I wimped out on my 20th High School reunion. Turns out it was nothing to get angsty about after all.

And I am still pretty much that same dork I was back in the day. But I'm okay with him now. He doesn't get out much anymore.

Reason Why I Love The Internet #156

2003-07-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

I am sitting at my home computer listening to some of the coolest, weirdest sound art on a site called 8bitrecs. The list of artists on this label encompasses lots of different electronic experimental music, from squeaky blip-hop, to ambient post-techno, to sampled and altered field recordings (like water dripping off a melted iceberg) to "ethnographic forgeries". Some of the absolutely most befuddling and intriguing stuff I've heard in a while.

And there's a whole world of this stuff. 8bitrecs is just one of many tiny labels. (stasisfield is another favorite so far. Check out their page of sample clips.)

London, which appears to be the epicenter of the sound art multiverse, even has a radio station dedicated to the genre. (If you can call it a genre, that is.)

Yeah, this stuff is pretty weird. Way too weird to make it into any store near me. Now I can explore new sonic vistas over the web. I love the Internet.

You can't go home again

2003-07-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

Well *I* can't anyway. It's being sold.

My brother is moving out of the house my family has owned since before I was in eighth grade. He was the last tie my family had to that place. Now it's going to get a makeover and be sold to the highest bidder.

I'm glad my parents will be losing one more real estate headache and getting some extra retirement cash. Good for them. But I'll miss the place.

I'll especially miss my cool room.

I wrote my first computer programs in that room. I did tons of homework in that room. Played a hell of a lot of records in that room. My first youthful romances played out in that room. Had dozens of makeout sessions and a handful of breakups in that room. I rehearsed my choral vocal pieces there. Rehearsed conversations there. Replayed conversations there, figuring out what I really *should* have said. In my room I was much cooler and more eloquent than I was in the outside world.

I cooked up a lot of dreams and schemes staring at that ceiling, all of which were intended for the world outside of that room. I've been in the world outside of that room for a long time now. I grew out of that room and, with it, most of those dreams and schemes.

I wish I could go to my room before they remodel the place and cut a largish square of wallboard out of that ceiling. I want that patch right above the spot where my bed was where I used to lay daydreaming and staring. I'd like to have just that one chunk. I could have it to remind me of the wonderful folly of my dreams. Dreams may change, but they must be dreamt anyway.

So, goodbye Old House We've Outgrown. It seems an honorable thing to fix you up and pass you on to some other family. Maybe some other kid will stare up at that patch of ceiling and cook up something really good in his dreams.

I'M GOING.

2003-07-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

Whether I want to or not. I figure I would eventually regret not going to my 20th High School reunion.

You see, I don't like who I was in High School. I was pretty much a dork and a poseur. The kind of guy who was vice-president or secretary of every club I could get into because it would look good on a college application. I was self-absorbed in that annoying, obsequious "How can I get you to like me?" kind of way. Not a pretty picture. Dork to the core.

And I don't relish being confronted with that picture and reconciling my current self to the dork I was in high school. Maybe I'm afraid that I am still just that dork with a more sophisticated outer presentation.

But I'M GOING anyway, painful as it may be.

I'M GOING -- to renew whatever connections I can with people in my past.
I'M GOING -- to cheer on the geeks, nerds, and invisibles who languished in the shadow of the A-list crowd and who have since made it good and are coming back as well-rounded, successful people.
I'M GOING -- to coo at pictures of babies I'll never meet.
I'M GOING -- to swap ironic snarky comments on 80's pop culture nostalgia.
I'M GOING -- to share in mutual congratulatory thanksgiving for having successfully negotiated that psychological minefield of adolescence we called High School.

I figure they key to survival of these things is the list of things I am *not* going for.

I'M *NOT* GOING -- to impress anyone with what a cool guy I am. (As if!)
I'M *NOT* GOING -- to validate myself by comparing my kids, job, wife, toys, or car with others.
I'M *NOT* GOING -- to smugly chuckle at how all the glamorati of my High School days are fatter, wrinklier, and balder now. (Well, not too much, anyway. Hee.)
I'M *NOT* GOING -- to talk about my blog, my art, my futures work, etc. in order to paint my ordinary suburban existence as something interesting and extraordinary. I'm ordinary and proud of it. I'll let my happy frumpy life stand on its own merits.

And I guess I have to come to terms with the dork that I was back in 1983 (and still am to some extent). He wasn't such a bad guy after all. Bless his nerdy, approval-craving, poseur wannabe heart.

A Creative Conversation

2003-07-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

"Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet they don't just exchange facts; They transform them, reshape them, draw different conclusions from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards, it creates new cards."

-- Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity

Speaking of creating new cards...

We finally got to play One Thousand Blank White Cards last night. There were seven players -- a UHCL futures student named Kelly, and her tag-along friend named Jeanette, fellow bloggers Gerry, Angela, and James, my friend from work Cindy and her son, Rhys.

At first we started out awkwardly, thrashing about in a "now how do we do this?" mode. I had to resist the urge to jump in and give direction to soothe the discomfort about the uncertain rules. The group started to norm by suggesting rule modifications and things to do, glancing at me to see if I'd "allow" them. I kept insisting that anything goes. (Except for modifying others' cards. That was the one rule I laid down.) Soon people were getting into it, trying things they wanted to do and not looking to me for approval. So sitting back and letting things work themselves out, as uncomfortable as it seemed at first, paid off. We formed a groove of sorts and had fun the whole two hours.

We kicked off the night by creating a bunch of cards. We needed a deck to start with, so we each sat and worked individually on a dozen or so cards each. It was interesting to see how the group energy played out in that phase. It was a burst that ran down slowly. People drawing and scribbling furiously, then stopping every once in a while to look up in thoughtful poses before putting nose to the cards again. Eventually, the energy ran down and people were done drawing and were ready to play.

Then there was a period of just picking and playing cards just to see what was in the deck. Not many new cards were created at that time. I, for one, wanted to see what clever creations everybody else had made. And, I have to admit, I wanted to see what reactions people had to my cards.

Soon, though, the play and subsequent conversation sparked further creativity. Someone would make a remark and one or two people would grab a blank card and start writing. It was clear that the creative energy was a sustained growth rather than the burst and fade we started out with.

We started with a deck of about sixty cards. We ended the game with over two hundred. It was the Conversation, organized around the structure of a card game, that inspired our creativity.

Socrates introduced the idea that you are smarter in dialogue with others than you are by yourself. His Socratic Method was intended to draw out insights and intelligence through dialogue organized around a structure of asking questions. We did the same thing in a way. We started off with a flurry of individual creativity until we all were spent. But we drew out ideas and creativity from each other as a group that we did not have as individuals.

Conversation makes you smarter. Conversation makes you more creative. And if the above-quoted Theodore Zeldin is to be believed, Conversation makes you sexier as well.

We didn't just reshuffle the cards, we made new cards. And we became smarter, more creative, and sexier in the process. Woo hoo. We need more of that.

And so I announced last night as the first in a series of monthly "Creative Conversations." Getting people together who don't normally interact, talking about stuff they don't normally talk about, organized around an activity or structure that is novel or unusual. All for the purpose of becoming smarter, more creative, and sexier together than we could ever be by ourselves.

This is that creative social outlet I was talking about earlier -- a birthday gift to myself. Happy Birthday Week to me!

I can only hope that it will be a gift to a few others as well.

Poem: Norman McCaig

2003-07-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

"Of You"

When the little devil, panic,
begins to grin and jump about
in my heart, in my brain, in my muscles,
I am shown the path I had lost
in the mountainy mist.

I'm writing of you.

When the pain that will kill me
is about to be unbearable,
a cool hand
puts a tablet on my tongue and the pain
dwindles away and vanishes.

I'm writing of you.

There are fires to be suffered,
the blaze of cruelty, the smoulder
of inextinguishable longing, even
the gentle candleflame of peace
that burns too.

I suffer them. I survive.

I'm writing of you.

-- Norman MacCaig

Unsafe Rafts

2003-07-09T22:40:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts on piety and sin

"The rituals and the sacrifices described
In the Vedas deal with lower knowledge.
The sages ignored these rituals
And went in search of higher knowledge. ...

Such rituals are unsafe rafts for crossing
The sea of samsara, of birth and death.
Doomed to shipwreck are those who try to cross
The sea of samsara on these poor rafts.
Ignorant of their own ignorance, yet wise
In their own esteem, these deluded men
Proud of their vain learning go round and round
Like the blind led by the blind."

-Mundaka Upanishad

"The fool practices concentration
And control of the mind.

But the master is like a man asleep.
He rests in himself
And finds nothing more to do."

-Ashtavakra Gita 18:33

Seems like the path of piety is the most dangerous path of all. Better to be a sinner and know it than to believe that one's own religious and ritual spiritual observances somehow cleanse one's inner state. It is one thing to be ignorant and blind, but to be ignorant and blind to one's own ignorance and blindness seems most perilous indeed.

Onward Evolutionary Soldiers

2003-07-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

The evolutionary strategies Humanity has used so far -- natural selction, genetic modifcations, mental modeling -- have succeeded in helping us achieve results we find individually desirable, but will only take our species so far.

This paper by Evolutionary Biologist John Stewart asserts that those strategies will not get humanity over the evolutionary hurdles our species is currently facing.

If we pursue evolution only to the extent that it satifies individuals' wants and needs and not the good of the Human Race, humanity may very well become extinct. How does humanity move past the pervasive problems that set our internal motivation systems at odds with our own evolutionary interests?

Stweart, in his book "Evolution's Arrow: The Direction of Evolution and the Future of Humanity," expands on the thesis in the above paper and asserts that spiritual practice is the evolutionary strategy which will give us the nudge past the standoff between what individuals want and what's good for us as a whole:

"The world's major religious systems all advocate the development of an ability to free onesself from particular emotional responses, desires, and motivations."

The idea being that developing such a capacity is the next great evolutionary trick we need to learn as a species.

(Hmmm. I grew up learning that evolution and religion were supposed to be at odds with one another. This is interesting.)

And so the next day I was reading in Huxley's Perennial Philosophy and he was talking about athletes and soldiers. Both are trained to sublimate their personal desires to the overall objective of the group to the point of enduring pain, suffering, and even death. This is just like the saint, the spiritual person, except that

The aim of spiritual training is to make people become selfless in every circumstance of life, while the aim of military training is to make them selfless in very special circumstances and in relation to only certain classes of human beings. (p. 44)

And so selfless, spiritual people may be the badass evolutionary soldiers upon whom the future of our species depends.

I want to be an evolutionary soldier when I grow up.

Beating the S-Curve?

2003-07-07T09:42:00.000-07:00

I missed blogging about this in a timely manner due to my self-imposed blogging hiatus, but I am intrigued about the recent jump in popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon, not just as a beer drinker, but as a futurist.

In lieu of posting about this last month, I went and bought a twelve pack of the stuff. I can say that, from what I can taste, the uptick in atttention is definitely *not* about the beer. But it's twice as cheap as the microbrews I usually drink and I'll have to admit it's not twice as bad. Get the beer cold enough and me hot enough and it's a decent beer.

I guess if you're a beer drinker in the BudCoorsSchlitzMiller stratus of the beer drinking world, Pabst Blue Ribbon is as good as any. I'd imagine that the beer-to-beer preferences of such drinkers ride pretty heavily on variables such as advertising, branding, and image.

What makes this interesting from a futurist perspective is that the PBR people are trying to evade one of the ironclad laws of marketing trends -- the backlash. They're resisting the urge to promote and expand the trend with the usual marketing techniques, hoping that they'll not alienate the base of early adapters who started the trend to begin with.

(remember the Sprite commercials a few years back that struck that "you and we both know we're trying to sell you something" ironic tone? Commercial anti-commercialism? Consumers saw right through that marketing strategy. This is something else alogether -- marketing by not marketing.)

So can Pabst avoid a backlash with an interesting "non-marketing" approach? My bet is no, because if the next wave of consumers, who are more into following established trends than fomenting new ones, latch onto the PBR trend and take it big time, there'll be a backlash. Doesn't matter that the Pabst marketing will be blameless. There's only so much market capital in a trend and the people will blow it all even if Pabst doesn't.

But, if they do avoid the backlash, that'll be an interesting twist on trend dynamics.

Thanks for your support

2003-07-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

"I am the father and mother of this universe, and its grandfather too; I am its entire support. I am the sum of all knowledge, the purifier, the syllable Om; I am the sacred scriptures, the Rik, Yajur, and Sama Vedas."

-Bhagavad Gita 9:17

God is the universe's "entire support." Yes.

A bond between two things that creates something new, something bigger and better than the parts by themselves, is the basis of all chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, and history. Such bonds are the universe's "entire support."

Now imagine that concept personified, endowed with an emergent consciousness, much like the consciousness that appears to emerge from the collections of cells we call humans. What do you call that concept, that consciousness.

I call it, him, her, (or whatever) God. Call it what you will. It just is.

Birthday Week

2003-07-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my 38th birthday. Go me. I am plausibly at mid-life. At least I hope I am at a lower bound of my mid life range. I figure that 76 would be the minimum life span where I would, like, not feel cheated or something. I'm shooting to beat my demographic.

So I am at an age where I am learning to accept some harsh truths about my life, my significance, aging, and the inevitability of death. (Cheerful, ain't I?) I need to be able to close gently some of the doors kept ajar for the younger man I envisioned my self as up to this point and put my full attention on the doors left to be opened. It's time to decide how I want to age, what my life's mission is, and what contribution I want to make.

But screw all that for now. Now's the time to party. I'm going to stretch it out over a week, sort of.

I plan to make some birthday observances. I will make art. I will pray. I will play basketball. I will play 1KBWC. I will take some Time Off To Take Stock. I will take this opportunity to thank all the people who help make my life what it is. I will write a letter to my Aunt Elinor.

And I'm giving myself some birthday gifts:

I'm starting a Men's Spirituality group at Church not because I feel some call to duty but because I want such a group in my life and it seems that the quickest way to get it is to start it.
I'm creating my own creative social outlet, starting with 1KBWC this week. More on this later.
I am reviving my bike commuting habit for at least a few days a week.
I am rededicating my prayer life.

I feel like I am at a place in my life where what I make of my birthday is more important than what other people make of it for me. So, happy birthday to me.

Flowing

2003-07-05T18:55:00.000-07:00

So, I'm back.

I still don't have my shit together, but I came to a place where I can accept the state of my shit.

Right after I started my blog sabbatical, I sat down and made a "shit list," prioritized in order of what I most needed to do. I found I couldn't empty the list. In fact, it's larger now than when I started.

Well, who would want an emtpy list anyways? I always hope to have new stuff coming at me -- means I am still vital. Like any "To Do" list, the best I could hope for was to move stuff off the top to make room for the new stuff that flows into the list every day.

The freshest water is the flowing water. If water sits still it stagnates. That's how I was feeling last month. Stagnant. Now I feel like I'm somewhat flowing. That's what the sabbatical was about.

So my resolve is to keep flowing -- move something off every day to make room for something new to flow in. And somehow I will find time to post here too. I really missed being on Overflow. And I missed all of you folks.

1KBWC: It's a date!

2003-06-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

(I'm breaking my self-imposed blog sabbatical to make this announcement. Boy I miss posting. I hadn't realized how much a part of my life this had become.)

Hey, I've set a time and place for a game of One Thousand Blank White Cards. It'll be on my end of the Houstonverse:

1KBWC
July 9th, 7-10 p.m.
Kenny J's Coffee House
Corner of Nasa Rd. 1 and Kirby
(close to NASA and UHCL)

Depending on how this works out, my vision is for this to be the first in a series of "Creative Conversations" nights, where we use games, futures, art, storytelling, spirit, irreverence -- whatever it takes -- to inspire dialogue and forge creative relationships in our community.

Hope you can join us.

Adequate Love

2003-05-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

This weekend's homily at Mass focused on the qualities of Love re: the Great Commandment and how the English language is wholly inadequate to express the idea of Divine Love, a.k.a. the greek word Agape. Fr. Lee made a valiant attempt to explain it, but he was limited by language as well. I was confirmed in my doubt that words could ever do the subject justice.

Reading my email after almost a week offline doing family stuff, I was pleased to see an email from my Metanexus list by the director of none other than The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love. He was talking about the need for a new scientific discipline to study altruism and divine love and he brought up this dude's book which is like the groundbreaking left-brained attempt to analyze Love.

Pitirim Sorokin's 1954 book Ways of Power and Love is apparently a classic, but it's new to me. In it he expresses a conceptual rubric for Divine Love around which we can organize our thinking and studies of Love.

Sorokin says that unlmited, divine, unselfish love has these five qualities:

intensivity -- It is deep and passionate and not tepid.
extensivity -- It extends to every human being and not just to one's friends and loved ones.
duration -- It lasts forever and does not wane
purity -- It is free from egoistic calculations of personal benefit and manipulation
adequacy -- It is effective. Love that subjectively meets the other four but fails to do some objective good is not true Love.

The adequacy part really spoke to me. If there is an area I fail most in, it is in adequacy.

Adequacy in Love takes a certain amount of self-care, of building up one's abilities and gifts so they can be shared. You have to take care of your own basics to free yourself up to be present to others. I know a number of people whose lives are so "busy," who spend 99.8% of their time running around and taking care of details of their own personal world, that they don't have the time and energy to expand their vision and reach beyond themselves and the small groups with which they self-identify. Some people are always in a crisis, comsumed by this or that deadline or obligation, usually self-created or created from procrastination borne of inattention to the details of life, that they have no time for adequate love. Sometimes I am those people.

Adequacy in Love means that to be a good Lover, you have to have your shit togther, essentially. And it seems that I can go weeks with my shit not together, so I am worried about this or that uncared-for detail or looming deadline. For example, I am driving around in danger of getting a ticket for my expired registration sticker. The mental energy worrying about that could be better spent. Why don't I just take care of it, you ask? Good question.

It's a form of paralysis. Looking at an overwhelming backlog of such uncared-for details stops me like a deer in headlights, and I'd rather just watch TV or update my blog than dive in and get started. It just seems so daunting. But that daunting paralysis makes me an ineffective lover. I lack sufficient attention to my own self-care and therefore am not much good to anybody. At least not as good as I could be.

So, I've taken this round about way to tell you that I'm taking a Blog Sabbatical to see if I can get some of my shit together. My Birthday is July 6th. I'm giving myself "Shit Together" for my birthday. So I'll see you in a little over a month.

I'll miss updating. I really have enjoyed the habit of writing (almost) daily that my blog has givien me. And I'll miss you all. But I have to drop a couple of things for a while.

It's like that monkey trap with the nuts in a jar and the monkey will grab a fistful and then won't let go of any of his nuts when he finds he can't get his hand out of the jar. Well I'm the monkey. And I need to quit holding my nuts.

I want to play 1KBWC

2003-05-21T14:21:00.000-07:00

Wanted: five or six creative people who live in the Greater Houston Area to play One Thousand Blank White Cards sometime in the next four to six weeks. Must be willing to have fun and not get irratated by games that have ill-defined rules. Intensely left-brained types need not apply.

Seriously. It's summer. I wanna play.

Out of the box

2003-05-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

Prayer #7 (Ink, watercolor on paper)

More colored boxes and lines. Starting to get tedious. I want to breeak out of my box mode. Even when I painted T-shirts I kept my wildy abstract paintings confined within boxes. I was never comfortable with anything freer or less confined.

My wife joked once that my boxes said a lot about me. That I was very creative and wild -- but just within the confines of my little box.

Well, I'm working on some pieces for this local show that are not confined to a box. Well, except for one which *is* a box actually. But this one painting is big. Bigger than anything I've done so far. And it's making me nervous.

Nothing will make me happy.

2003-05-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

Know what I want? Nothing(tm). I want Nothing(tm).

Nothing(tm) refreshes and rejuvenates your spirit.
It improves your attitude and sharpens your vision.
Four out of five doctors recommend a daily dose of Nothing(tm) to relieve stress.

Nothing(tm) is all natural, with no additives or preservatives.
It is not irradiated and has no GM ingredients.
It has no cholesterol, it's low in carbohydrates, and does not promote tooth decay.

Nothing(tm) is legal in all fifty states.
It is fair trade, organic, and eco-friendly.
No animals were harmed in the making of Nothing(tm).

Best of all, Nothing(tm) is completely free.
For a limited time, Nothing(tm) can be sent to you
free of sales taxes and shipping costs.

So, ask your doctor if Nothing(tm) is right for you.
Side effects can include sleepiness, guilt, and nagging impatience,
but these effects lessen with practice.

In extremely rare cases, overuse of Nothing(tm) can lead to
unemployment, voluntary simplicity, accumulation of hemp products,
ashram residency, and possibly complete ego sublimation.

What was that 1-800 number again?

Hip-hop fuddy-duddy daddy

2003-05-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am old and stodgy and getting stodgier by the hour. But I try to maintain at least a nodding acquaintance with what the kids are listening to these days because, as a parent of a pre-teen and a catechist to that age group, I feel it's kind of my job.

So I'm going to show you my ignorance here: What does the phrase "rollin' on dubs" mean? Something about drugs? Hell, I dunno.

And I get the feeling that "Pimpin'" has taken on a meaning other than a name for the practice of managing prostitutes. Am I correct in assuming that it refers to an ostentatious manner of conducting one's affairs, with particular focus on conspicuous consumption and surrounding one's self with scantily clothed young "beeeeyotches"?

And who's this "shorty" everyone is talking to? I assume "shorty" is some form of familiar address in hip-hop speak, but how is that related to calling someone "G" and "Dogg?" And is there any difference between one's "peeps" and "homies?"

I admit to liking "rap music." I really want to listen to it. Really.

(Why do we call it rap music, BTW? Rap is a musical technique. We don't call other music "singing music" or "instrument music." Why marginalize this musical technique to its own subgenre? I think "Hip-Hop" is the better name for the genre. But what do I know?)

But I just can't bear it for very long. Every time I turn my radio on to the Hip-hop stations in Houston, I get turned off.

It's like, well, ... Imagine you meet a person. He's attractive and charming and obviously very talented. He seems to be a cool guy to hang with. Someone out of the ordinary. But after a few beers, you notice that all he talks about is himself, how rich he is, how tough he is, how many women he's been with. He keeps wanting you to look at his Rolex and ride in his Escalade. He wants you to know he has a gun and has used it. He tells you all about his friends who "stay down" and gang up on anyone who might cross him. And he has a certain pride in this self-centered, thuggish existence. He thinks the fact that his lifestyle most certainly may get him killed before he reaches the age of thirty makes him some sort of a tragic heroic figure... Who wants to hang with a person like that?

It's not the beat, it's the humanity. I like the music just fine, but I hate the macho mythos that surrounds it. Yeah, it may reflect urban "reality." But it's a "reality" to be changed, not embraced.

I heard these hip-hop lyrics this weekend that sort of sums up why I feel I must listen occasionally but can't listen for very long. The guy was rapping that he wanted to

"get my drink on.
get my smoke on.
Go home with something to poke on."

I don't want to have anything to do with someone who refers to beautiful young women, one of whom could be my daughter some day, as "something to poke on." And I don't want my daughter to have anything to do with them either.

Expressionism

2003-05-16T05:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, another art rectangle...

Prayer #2 (Ink, graphite, and watercolor on paper)

I don't know why I ended up liking this one. It kind of reminded me of Brice Marden meets Agnes Martin in the background.

Ha. As if I can compare myself to either of them. But that does bring up a question. Why does my abstract expressionism not look as good to me as that of established abstract expressionists? I've dribbled paint before but have produced nothign like a Pollock. My stark streaks of paint look nothing like Robert Mottherwell's or Franz Klein's. My scribble works don't seem to measure up to those of Cy Twombly.

Maybe it's a matter of confidence. And size. These Abstract Expressionists drip, streak, scribble just like I do but they do it boldly on huge canvases and march their paintings into elite galleries where they hang huge pricetags on them. Maybe they all know the emperor has no clothes, but they don't care because they look damn fine in a birthday suit *or* an Armani suit and if you laugh and point to hell with you you don't know art anyway.

Maybe their early art education gives them the technical background where they can say, "Oh I did representational work years ago. Anyone can paint a picture *of* something. That's so passe. I want to see what I can create if I throw my paint with my bare hands." Maybe their dues-paid art school cred gives them license to break out and follow nobody's rules anymore.

Me, I have no cred. No technique. I just paint, draw, scribble what I want. Express myself.

Maybe *this* is what makes theirs better than mine: They paint, draw, scribble what they want to just like me, *but* they don't stop afterwards and compare their work to others' and feel inferior. Abstract expressionism is indeed expression and if that expression is honestly stated from inside yourself and not an imitation of someone else's statement or style, it's good. Maybe I should stop "Being Agnes" and find my own voice.

And start using really huge canvases.

The Matrix Reloaded

2003-05-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

My first impressions:

How do they keep their sunglasses on while they fight?
Future Church meetings look to be one *heck* of a lot more fun.
The future Human music of choice? Techno, of course.
In the future, white guys in dreadlocks are still evil.

The New Scholarship of Comics

2003-05-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

Most of my attempts to justify my love of comic books, er, graphic novels sound like desperate rationalizations: "No, they can be literate and very smart. Really."

So I am happy to have some help from the Chronicle of Higher Education (via Arts Journal)

"The best and most interesting of comic strips and comic books have entertained but also educated us -- despite (sometimes partly because of) the disapproval that parents and cultural critics have expressed -- all of our lives. They have taught us, despite a paucity of didacticism, about manners and morals, but mostly about the subtly changing scene behind the ostensible narrative of politics, economics, and warfare. ... Comics offer a running commentary, whether by artistic intent or otherwise, on the look and feel of daily life. They provide, at their best (however rare that might be), a meditation on the anonymous social history around us. And they provide, at least potentially, a way for the teacher to connect, without condescending, to the life of the student mind."

What's Your Superpower?

2003-05-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend we had a mini-retreat for our 6th and 7th graders. It was about recognizing that your true self-esteem comes from accepting and celebrating the way God made you. It's actually hard to get these kids to talk about their talents. They are either afraid their talents are not "cool" (they tap dance or play oboe) or they are worried that talking about what they do well will make them appear "conceited."

So, taking an idea from the movie Mystery Men where these ordinary people had dressed up their talents and formed a band of ragtag superheroes, one of the exercises was to get the kids to think of their talents and then come up with a "superhero" that could be their super alter ego. So, like Hank Azaria's "Blue Raja" who threw forks and Janeane Garofalo's "Bowler," we all came up with super heroes. So we had "Oboe Girl," "Soccer Man," "Sewer Breath" (he didn't quite get the concept.) etc.

I, by the way, was "Obscuro." Obscuro's mind is crammed with trivial facts that can be retrieved at any time as long as the facts have no practical application to the situation at hand. He hangs with "Unfinished Project Man" and the "Half-Read Bookworm". All are my super alter egos.

So I laughed out loud when I ran across this funny story, three days later, via Caterina's blog. (The illustrations are tres cool.)

What's Your Superpower?

I've Gone Art Scan Happy!!!

2003-05-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll quit scanning and posting my little rectangles soon. I promise. You know how it is with a kid and his new toy, right?

Prayer #11 (Ink, graphite, and watercolor on paper)

The Art of Letting Go

2003-05-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

(As you can see, I got my image hosting capabilities sorted out. Bear with me while I figure out how to do this again. Hopefully my page is not too slow loading now.)

The big problem I have with doing any art is knowing when to stop doing stuff to my art. That moment when some background process in my being says "Stop. Now. Just Stop." and I put down my stuff and quit tweaking it to make it "better." Sometimes I don't listen to that voice and end up with a convoluted mess instead of a simpler mess.

Prayer #4 (Ink and watercolor on paper.)

Like when I did this one. I was playing with order and disorder, regularity and randomess. And color. I like playing with color. So I got my peculiarly uneven ink lines down and covered it with a wash of orange and yellow watercolor (which *still* seeped under my tape -- dammit! -- to a not too unpleasing effect.). And I remember thinking that the orange was "too much" and that I was going to use a cloth to "take up" some of the color. I got a few wipes into taking up some of the color and then the voice came from back inside me -- "Stop." And I did. It was all uneven and blotchy, being right in the middle of removing the excess color and all. But I let it stay. Resisted the urge to make it even. To force it. To "correct it."

To this day, I like it. Maybe it was just the fact that I listened to the inner voice and resisted the urge to control further. This little square reminds me to listen and let go.

No matter how much I try to control, my lines will never be exactly parallel, my color will never be even. My hand will never have the precision my mind desires. So I just try my best and then listen for the voice that calls me to let go.

Innovation

2003-05-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

This morning on our walk we passed a woodpecker getting his peck on with the roof of a house in our neighborhood. It made his pecking sound like the rat-a-tat-tat of a snare drum rather than the hollow thonk-thonk-thonk of his fellow peckers. He was the hippest pecker in our neighborhood.

The Bad Paintings Must Be Painted.

2003-05-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

This is the painting that caused my watercolor cursing a few weeks back. Not what I was going for, but it turned out to be something I kind of like. Maybe the mind, when looking back on one's mistakes, creates value to salvage the experience. A form of nostalgia maybe.

Amen

2003-05-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

"Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of
hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with
joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All
must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a
hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without
fail because it awakens within you the sensation which tells you this is
something you have always known."

- "The Orange Catholic Bible Commentaries"

This quote grabbed me. Something to keep in mind as a parent and as a catechist.

Ain't She Sweet

2003-05-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

Easter Pictures are in. Petunia hunts eggs.

Squishy Smartmob

2003-05-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

I've never been much of a site promoter. You know, building up a high-volume following on the web. If I wanted to get a high hit count, I'd say and do a lot of things differently on my site. No, I'd rather have a select group of contacts on the web who I see as online friends. I guess my online MBTIis different than my real world MBTI.

But if I wanted to build a large online readership and if I were successful (a big "if" indeed), I'd want to do stuff like pamie does. Recently she used her internet fame to help a library that's strapped for cash and her readers responded fabulously. In fact, you can still get on that particular bandwagon if you wish.

This is the most exciting thing about the internet -- that it can be used to motivate and mobilize without the organizational overhead of most grassroots movements. Leveraging one's influence on the internet to create altruistic smartmobs is too cool for school.

As a futurist, I've been kind of half tracking and half rooting for Pamie as a lead indicator for a potential emerging trend -- people who get famous on the net and then leverage that fame into real life. Matt Drudge kind of fits that bill but he had a big scandal to help him out. Pamie, if she can hit it big in L.A. after all, would be the first I know of who's gone bigtime from the web on her own merits. For instance, Her recent book is derived from her hilarious popular online diary in the 1990's (Which is why you can't find it in her site archives anymore. Buy the book you cheapskate!) and it's a good guess that the majority of readership will be former online readers. If she can sell the script, who knows?

And so, as a futurist, I'm monitoring another emerging trend -- virtual activism. Groups like pamie's readers crystallizing around an issue or cause and mobilizing spontaneously in a way that spans geographic, socioeconomic, racial, and other barriers. And in a way that gets real world results. So I read pamie regularly. Not just as a fan, but with an eye toward the Internet's best future.

Futurists' top forty

2003-05-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

My old school chum Sandy Burchstead left UHCL and opened a successful business doing futurist stuff merged with education. She's got a great site and is a very talented educator -- if you want to integrate futures thinking into your K-12 curriculum, she's your best bet.

Anyway, a while back I started an email conversation about pop music that talks about the future. The idea was to identify resource material and assess the various ways the future is referred to in pop music. I ended up with a sort of catalog of the future in music. My idea was to post it on the web for all to see and update. So that debuted on my "To-Do" list at number 157 and never broke the 100 mark.

Sandy swooped in and picked up my slack. She posted the chart on her site as a futurists' resource. I couldn't think of a more fitting place for it. Check it out.

Having a Ball

2003-05-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

Looking forward to the Art Car Ball tonight. We can't make it to the Art Car Parade this weekend, so the ball will have to be our Art Car fix for the year.

I'm glad that the Ball is back in a parking garage this year. Having it in the Astrodome last year almost killed it. They couldn't serve real food because they had to use the dreaded Dome food. And they couldn't afford to turn the lights completely on so the whole time your eyes didn't know whether to use their rods or their cones. And the Dome swallowed the bands' sound. It was terrible. This year, I'm sure, it's back to its hip zany self.

If you live in Houton, you gotta check the Art Car Ball out. It's the best party in town. And kids can come too. We're taking Girlzilla, who's been an art car fan since she was four years old.

The innocence of any flesh sleeping

2003-05-07T14:39:00.000-07:00

I found a little treasure chest of Brian Patten's poetry.

Here's my favorite jewel so far:

Sleeping beside you I dreamt
I woke beside you;
Waking beside you
I thought I was dreaming.

Have you ever slept beside an ocean?
Well yes,
It is like this.

The whole motion of landscapes, of oceans
Is within her.
She is
The innocence of any flesh sleeping,
So vulnerable
No protection is needed.

In such times
The heart opens,
Contains all there is,
There being no more than her.

In what country she is
I cannot tell.
But knowing – because there is love
And it blots out all demons –
She is safe,
I can turn,
Sleep well beside her.

Waking beside her I am dreaming.
Dreaming of such wakings
I am all love’s senses woken.

-- Brian Patten

Dim Beam

2003-05-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

This Bozo makes Bruce Wexler's anti-poetry screed seem downright erudite.

According to columnist Alex Beam in the Boston Globe, National Poetry Month is a "trumped-up, tricked-out, fake celebration," poets are "worthless malingerers," and poetry is "stomach-churning sentiment."

My, my, are someone's hemorrhoids acting up? Or did some cute girl laugh at his pitiable attempts at verse back in seventh grade? Must be an emotional thing, as I can find no logical reason for such a polarized position on poetry.

And apparently Alex Beam cannot find a logical reason either. His argument against poetry is that:

1) Maya Angelou is a sell-out hack.
2) Hallmark sells sentimental schlock.

I'm sorry, but one arguable point about one poet and one obvious truth does not make an effective argument justifying such silliness.

But it is somewhat comforting that anyone can be a columnist for a major daily newspaper these days. There's hope for us bloggers.

Artist: Stephen Eiring

2003-05-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

Just to remind myself that Overflow is part blog,
I'll point you to an artist
I like in a Cy Twombly kind of way.

Let Us Play

2003-05-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

"As prayer becomes more intimate, grace reaches down into the depths
of our psyche, empowering it to unload the emotional damage and
debris of a lifetime. In time we will make the transition from going
to God through reason and particular acts of the will to going to him
more directly through the intuitive faculties. Then God will relate I am always
to us through them instead of through the external senses, memory,
imagination, reasoning, and acts of the will."

- Thomas Keating [20th C.], "Invitation to Love" -

I am always looking for ways to make prayer more intimate, more intuitive, more natural.

On some of the newer playscapes in the greater Suburban area of Clear Lake there is a feature which is like the modern version of the "tin can with string" telephones we made as kids. There's a megaphone looking thing somewhere on the playground that is connected by a pipe to another megaphone looking thing elsewhere on the playground. I have never seen a kid enjoy that particular feature beyond the two minutes it takes for her to discover, "Wow, sound travels thorough pipes!"

It gets old quickly. Why? Because kids who want to talk to each other don't want a distorting, awkward, unnatural conduit mediating their conversation. They can just walk a few yards and talk face to face.

You know, I feel the same way about almost all types of verbal prayer. Language is for me is a distorting, awkward, unnatural conduit mediating between me and God, in my experience. I need something closer, more "face to face."

Lately I have been using art as prayer, focusing my hands, eyes, and head on a creative task. Inducing flow states, forcing myself to stop, take care, and pay attention. God created each of us with a preferred mode of learning, a unique set of gifts, and, I believe, an optimal way to communicate with Her. And now prayer is not an awkward chore. I enjoy it. I imagine God delights in the fact that I look forward to being with Him. I just need to get rid of the nagging voice that says, "That's not real prayer. You're just playing."

Playing, praying. Whatever.

Swim Mom Season

2003-05-06T03:10:00.000-07:00

(I'm learning to post to my blog via email to get around the site blocking whims of Borg Incorporated. Excuse me if my posts look funny or something for a few days as I am not used to doing this by email and the feature gives me less control of how my posts look.)

Yesterday was the first swim practice of summer. Ahhh.

I can't say I like the endless hours sitting in the sun waiting for my kid's three minutes to swim, but I still like swim team season. I like the chloriney smell of pool water when mingled with the faux-tropical scent of sunscreen. I like the bracing cold slap of the first jump into the water on a hot day. I like playing catch with water balls across a big pool. I like the cute little contraptions the babies wear to allow them to swim and keep upright. I love how the pool tires out the kiddos so that they go home and go to bed without the "But it's still light outside" summer bedtime protest. I love cold drinks in coozies, reading in lounge chairs, and the sound of little legs industriously splashing.

Most of all I love the Swim Mom. The Swim Mom is a close cousin to the ubiquitous Soccer Mom, but rarer and therefore more alluring. Soccer Moms are basically seasonless, but the Swim Moms come out of hibernation only for these few months at the beginning of Summer. Sure, you can catch sight of them at other times, but the viewing is best in swim team season in late May and June.

And oh, the beautiful pear-shaped women! All clad in the Swim mom attire -- one piece bathing suit, shorts, and a cap or visor. They come with juice boxes and crackers in tow to satisfy their little tadpoles. They come bearing womens' magazines and Summer Pulp Fiction. They come sipping Iced Tea and Crystal Light and diet soda. Forced into a situation where they must feed, entertain, care for, and track the whereabouts of each little member of their brood at the pool, they are at their most organized, their most prepared, their most sexy. But they don't know how sexy. Brainwashed by the ads in the women's magazines they carry, they have no idea how beautiful they are. And that adds in a poignant way to their allure.

I can't remember the poet who wrote a line about his wife -- "The woman through whom all women must be loved." But that's my wife. She is the one Swim Mom through whom all Swim Moms must be loved. Seeing her in her Swim Mom uniform makes me want to send the kids off with with a juice box, throw away that damned women's magazine, set down the iced tea, and put my hands on my favorite thing about summer.

schedule gone awry

2003-05-06T02:25:00.000-07:00

Two things are wreaking havoc with my posting schedule lately, one good, one bad. First, somebody got a whim in our IM department here at Borg Incorporated and decided to block the blogger site. No biggie, but it alters when and how I can post.

Second, my wife and I are starting a new habit of getting up early and starting our day by walking together. This gets her up about an hour earlier and gets me going about an hour later than I normally would. This is a very good thing. Been almost a week now.

But until my habits rebalance, posting may be erratic.

Girlzilla Rising

2003-05-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

In a bizarre move that can only be explained with the help of the DSM IV, one of the parents of a kid in Girlzilla's Girl Scout Troop tried to stage a coup and replace the current leader and install herself. This mom actually sent her kid to school with a petition to get the other girls in the troop to sign. Amazing. And sad.

Girlzilla went to her mom.The Girl Scout Office was called. The coup was thwarted. Somehow the mental case mom saw herself as the victim in all of this. Amazing. And sad.

Anyway, why I'm telling you is that I was proud that my daughter did the right thing. Girlzilla not only refused to sign the petition, but went to her mom and told her which is exactly what we have told her to do in this kind of situation. It's gratifying to see glimpses of the good person Girlzilla is turning out to be. As a parent I get so used to being worried about my kid and how to help her deal with her problems that I sometimes lose sight of the ways in which some of the lessons stick. My baby is growing up to be a mature young lady.

Poetry is Dead. Long Live poetry.

2003-05-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

This guy is seriously full of it. Bruce Wexler, whoever the hell he is, has declared that poetry is dead.

Well, hell, I guess we poets and poet lovers should just pack it in then. We lost Bruce!

His evidence:

1) There are more people who write it than there are who appreciate it, and;
2) Bruce Wexler doesn't read it anymore

Well I don't give a flying you-know-what whether Bruce Wexler reads it. I'll point to my shelf of poetry as a personal counterexample. And doesn't the fact that there are a good number of people who write it mean that there are at least as many people who appreciate it?

Perhaps Bruce is pointing to the obvious fact that poetry is not a mass-media art anymore. Maybe Bruce thinks that art must be packaged for mass-production to be real art. Maybe this says more about Bruce's pedestrian tastes than it does about poetry or art.

Shame for a national mag like Newsweek to waste column-inches like that. Next time they should feature a little-known poet. Heck, that space would have been better used by running back columns of the comic "Nancy."

Mundane Stuff

2003-04-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

"The fly that touches honey cannot use its wings;
so the soul that clings to spiritual sweetness
ruins its freedom and hinders contemplation."

- St. John of the Cross -

This is just what I needed to read (which in itself sets off some internal alarms.) The vast majority of my time I do not *feel* close to God, I do not *hear* the sweet music of spirituality over the hum of the engines of my life on steady course. But I can be assured that the steady hum is spiritual music of its own prosaic sort. When I think about it, that is..

I know people who are addicted to the candles and incense and music and all the sweet feelings that a superficially sensual spirituality can inspire. I've been known to lapse into that trap where I think I must *feel* spiritual to *be* spiritual. It's that trap which makes me a prime target for commercialized feel-good new-age spiritual hucksterism. It's that trap which makes me question my interest in Buddhism because of its behind the curve candle shop curio trendiness.

It's an attitude that makes me not look for the spirit in the depths of dishwater, dirty nappies, and dingy laundry.

One of my priest friends said some thing to me recently that I just had to write down. He said it's his job as a priest to make mundane stuff holy -- he takes normal bread and wine and makes it into a sacrament. But then he said that we laypeople have the same job to make mundane stuff holy as well.

The divine can be found in the details of a life lived in Love, but those details are rarely the stuff of veneration and worship. Would you put a diaper on an altar? Only if the diaper genie was full, I guess. :)

Its all Good

2003-04-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

Being asked to speak to a group of married couples about marriage on Saturday night: GOOD
Having to write a talk about marriage on Friday night to give to a group of married couples for Saturday Night: NOT GOOD
Arriving and realizing that the couples you're about to tell about marriage have been married on average thirty years, twice as long as you: NOT GOOD
Being able to adjust your talk during the rubber chicken dinner: GOOD
Having a rubber chicken dinner set in front of you, which you must politely eat: NOT GOOD
Eating a rubber chicken dinner that turns out to be quite tasty after all : GOOD
Audience enjoying your talk: GOOD.
Having enough time left after the speaking engagement to catch a quick movie: GOOD
Finding a movie, Chasing Papi that fit exactly into your time window: GOOD
Being at Gulfpointe 97 theatres with the thronging Saturday night crowds, 75% of them theater hopping teens: NOT GOOD
Looking at the characters of the movie, who are all serious eye candy: GOOD
Watching characters who have the acting talent of serious eye candy: NOT GOOD
Listening while the idiot behing you in the theatre answers his cell phone DURING THE MOVIE and carries on a conversation: NOT GOOD
Imagining the idiot being struck dumb from his own cell phone radiation: GOOD
Noticing the interesting use of animation as a plot device in Chasing Papi: GOOD
Noticing that the plot, dialogue, direction, and everything else (besides the eye candy) was uninteresting: NOT GOOD
Not caring because you had a night out with the woman you love: GOOD
Pulling into the babysitter's five minutes early: GOOD
Getting home and collasping into bed: GOOD
The idea of mixing service and dating: VERY GOOD

Small Sermons

2003-04-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

Here are three small poems worth mulling over. Would have been more appropriate to post these during lent. I just post them as they are sent to me.

When the mind is attracted
To anything it senses,
You are bound.

Where there is no I,
You are free.

Where there is I,
You are bound.

Consider this.

It is easy.

Embrace nothing,
Turn nothing away.

-Ashtavakra Gita 8:3-4

--------------------------------------

We Who Prayed And Wept

We who prayed and wept
for liberty from kings
and the yoke of liberty
accept the tyrrany of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.

Those who will not learn
in plenty to keep their place
must learn it by their need
when they have had their way
and the fields spurn their seed.
We have failed Thy grace.
Lord, I flinch and pray,
send Thy necessity.

--- Wendell Berry

------------------------------------

Ashamed of what's not shameful,
not ashamed of what is,
beings adopting wrong views
go to a bad destination.

Seeing danger where there is none,
and no danger where there is,
beings adopting wrong views,
go to a bad destination.

-Dhammapada, 22, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Heidi Cody

2003-04-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

I generally don't like to do "look what I found in my referrer logs" posts, but sometimes I find stuff that's too good not to mention.

There was one google hit on my page from someone searching for "Heidi Cody" and I was wondering if it was someone I know in real life looking for us on the web. What I found when I followed the link myself was pleasant surprise.

There is a Brooklyn-based artist named Heidi Cody who does brightly-colored print art. And she's pretty good too.

She uses her bright prints to highlight the saturation of commercialism in culture. For instance, each letter in this alphabet comes from the logo of a major american consumer brand. Can you recognize them? And how about this collection called "Fast Pitch" which contains small bits of familiar logos? I could recognize Starbucks, Oreos, and Dominoes Pizza. (Says a lot about me huh?) How 'bout you?

So Heidi and I have a cool namesake of sorts. I love the Internet.

Hair Genes

2003-04-25T04:56:00.000-07:00

Happy DNA day! I was listening to the DNA day story on NPR just as I was trimming my beard, so my thoughts turned to hair and heredity.

My beard is just like my hair has always been. It has the same unruly, impossible nature my head of hair has.

I grew up envying kids with straight hair. Hair you could actually style instead of just tame. Hair that would obey. Back in the seventies when I was a kid everyone had "wings" ala Farrah Fawcett and Shaun Cassidy. I wanted "wings." What I had was more like "tentacles." My hair was thick and curly and ruled by waves and swirls and cow-licks that made every single barber I ever had remark about my hair. I had thick Black Forest Hair.

There were two times in my life I was satisfied with my hair. Once when I just let my hair win and it let it grow out unabated. The waves and swirls, about six or so inches out, turned into a thick curly mane of hair. And nowadays, when I cut it back so short that my hair has no freedom to get swirly on me.

Same goes for my beard. If I let it grow out, I look positively Hassidic, and my wife is after me to shave. And when I trim it very short it looks uniform, but kind of retro ala Miami Vice, and my wife says it's too short. But at medium trim, you can make out the patchy shocks of thick whiskers and the unpredictable sparser areas, like an uncharted geography of follicular distribution. And so I am rarely satisfied. But it beats shaving all to hell.

The one time I shaved my beard (egged on by a particularly aggregious beard-shaping mishap) I hopped into bed with my wife and she saw me and screamed. Once she figured out it was me and not some bed-jumping marauder who vaguely looked like her husband, she said immediately, with urgency "Grow it back." So I've had a beard ever since. And probably always will.

Girlzilla has inherited my thick forest hair. And she has the same love-hate relationship with it. At its current length, when she does nothing with it and lets it hang, it looks like a blonde version of Rosanna Rosanna Danna's hair. (Old SNL reference) She wants straight hair like the other kids too. Last night she was up past her bedtime trying to straighten it with a curling iron, frustrated to tears. We had to send her to bed in mid battle. Poor kid, she has my hair genes.

Now with Mr. Freshpants, who is African American, we have ahead of us a whole new hair adventure which will require some training and adjustment. I wash the oil out of my own hair. I put oil in his hair after I wash it. It's a whole new territory.

Petunia's hair is like her. Wispy and petite and eminently stylable. Looks good with bows.

But neither of them has my hair genes. Girzilla does. Sorry kiddo.

My Dogma ate my Karma

2003-04-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

A discussion in some comments below made me think: What do Karma, Zen, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle have in common?

They're all concepts that, since they have been popularized into common usage, are usually inaccurately applied.

Take Karma, for instance. People talk about Karma as if it was some form of cosmic retribution. Like, let's say that you made a really boorish, insensitive post on your blog and then a few days later you got attacked by a Rottweiler and were seriously hurt. That's an unfortunate coincidence, but that's not Karma.

Nobody, not even people who make fun of fat people, deserve to be attacked by a Rottweiler. I certainly hope that person recovers as quickly and comfortably as possible.

Karma, if I understand it right, has to do with how your choices affect your future. Like, if you are a violent, angry person who goes around acting violent and angry, you are more likely to become a victim of violence and anger yourself. Not because you *deserve* it, but because you set it up that way for yourself. Karma is not so much a religious belief as a good sense philosophy to live by.

So, if you post insensitive things on your blog, you do not deserve to be attacked by a big dog. But you do create a future for yourself that is more aligned with insensitivity which, if it becomes a habit, will probably not be good for you in the long run.

The good news is that you can always change your Karma by changing your choices. I like ending with the good news.

How you know you're in a NASA meeting.

2003-04-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

You go for several minutes where all the nouns, aside from the occasional pronoun, are acronyms.

Blow your anti-terrorism whistle.

2003-04-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

This is some very funny terrorism advice. From a local Houston group.

Berry Good

2003-04-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

Wendell Berry captures my current mood of ambivalence, ambiguity, and equivocation in three little gems:

About the tension between public and private personas...

A Warning To My Readers

Please do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full of
fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.

-- Wendell Berry

About procrastination and productivity...

Throwing Away The Mail

Nothing is simple,
not even simplification.
Thus throwing away
the mail, I exchange
the complexity of duty
for the simplicity of guilt.

-- Wendell Berry

About contemplation and companionship...

Except

Now that you have gone
and I am alone and quiet,
my contentment would be
complete, if I did not wish
you were here so I could say,
"How good it is, Tanya,
to be alone and quiet."

-- Wendell Berry

I know he's the "Mad Farmer" and i am a middle-aged city boy, but I can never read him without a nod of acknowledgement and agreement.

Pinocchio World I World I'd Like to See

2003-04-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

So I'm already in a bad mood. Seeing as how this creeping crud in my chest has not let me draw a good breath in several days and I still have this earache and headache and it's really cramping my style.

And then I run into this post on a blog about this story. For a further exhibit of human kindness and charity, read some of the comments below the post. Priceless specimens there I tell you.

First of all, let me say that I am basically against the lawsuit in the story. And I'll be the first to own up to the fact that obesity is usually a condition created by bad choices. Granted there is a huge very profitable infrastructure that is invested in encouraging folks to get fat and keeping them that way while making them feel insecure about being fat so they'll spend lots of money on loopy shortcuts to get skinny again. And there is a reasonable body of medical evidence that at least some obesity is determined by genetics -- some people can eat like pigs and get a free pass from putting on the pounds which is most decidedly not fair. But in most cases, I believe it is a matter of personal responsibility and behavior. I know that first hand.

But you know...

You know what I'd like to see, if only for a glimpse? I'd like to see *everyone's* fundamental character flaws and poor choices manifest themselves physically in a way that is unmistakeable and unnatractive. Kind of like the Pinnochio phenomenon writ universal -- you lie, your nose grows. That kind of thing.

Lesse, what if people who, say, made rude insensitive comments grew hairy moles on their foreheads and with each little smug remark the mole grew a little bigger? Or what if malicious gossip made your eyes slide slightly out of alignment so that you looked a little more like a Picasso with each little juicy tidbit you share with your peeps? Yeah, a whole world that could not hide their pettiness, shallowness, and, yes, lack of self-discipline, behind an attractive face and body. That way, no one could be beautiful on the outside without being beautiful on the inside. Just maybe the world would be a better place.

Pinocchio World. That would be some sweet justice. It wouldn't relieve any of my problems at all. But it would be kind of cool to see.

But only in my mind's eye. For a minute. I wouldn't wish that kind of humiliation on anyone. If you are so blessed, then please appreciate it if you have the option of hiding the evidence of your faults. Not everyone can do that.

I guess Jesus would have me pray for this person and the conversion of their heart or something. So I will. But not because I want to.

Beyond Lovers

2003-04-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

As I sat at dinner last night my line of sight was directly on this older couple in the booth by our table. They must have been in their eighties. Her hands were palsied as she poked at her salad. He stooped slightly over his. They didn't say a word to each other the entire time as far as I could tell, but their eyes held contact often. It seemed as if they'd been together so long that they had abandoned words and gone telepathic. Their eyes did their speaking.

They shared a dessert, cheesecake, as apparently was their habit. The waitress seemed to know their routine. After they paid he gently stroked her hair as he helped her up from the booth. They left slowly, her on his arm. The two forks crossed on the empty dessert plate they left behind seemed touchingly significant.

Beautiful. To be beyond being lovers, beyond mere soulmates, to the undefinable next level. What more inspiring vision for any married person can there be?

Deconstraction

2003-04-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

I had this weird experience in Church last night.

You ever get that kind of odd feeling when you're listening to someone talk and you suddenly notice their makeup? Or their hair? And you have this totally absurd feeling and think, "This person has paint on her face as she is talking to me. And she has combed petroleum products through her hair. And she is wearing spun plant fibers woven with strands of more petroleum products on her body. And she has breasts. And a sternum. And bones. Which are made up of bone cells which have all these different kinds of organelles those have complex molecules and all those molecules have atoms like calcium. And atoms have, you know, protons and stuff and protons are made up of God only knows how many different kinds of subatomic particles like muons and quarks and such. And all are separated by space. So this woman I am talking to is a well-organized pile of particles made mostly of empty space. And on a quantum level, each of her particles is a probability function. She's a complex probability function. And I am a complex probability function. And were talking about what to eat for lunch"

That ever happen to you, in a split-second, as you are talking to someone? The person you are relating to suddenly deconstructs in your mind's eye when you least expect it?

It's like how I could be driving down the street and think suddenly, "I am operating a pile of heavy machine-tooled metal parts at a speed that would certainly kill me were they not moving with me at the same speed. My life depends not on those parts, but on the relationship they have to one another. My life is in the hands of an army of people who machine-tooled and arranged this pile of parts for me."

I call it deconstraction. We create for ourselves a curtain of reality so we don't have to deal with all of reality at one time and our brains do not explode. The curtain is necessary for us to function, but it is a curtain indeed. Yes, it may be an enormously complex pile of parts, but I call it a "Car" because most of the time I must deal with it as one unit. My friend is a "person" and not a pile of particles because that is how I must relate to her most of the time. Every once in a while my mind pulls back the curtain for a tiny glimpse at what lies behind my carefully constructed reality filter curtain. And I find it very distracting. Decon-straction.

And so as Fr. Albert was bowing to the paschal candle last night, I had a Spiritual Deconstraction. Symbolism, history, traditions, mystery, beliefs exploded from behind the Paschal Candle and then kept coming out as the Mass progressed. Everything I laid eyes on was deconstracted briefly. I had to work to turn it off in my head. I came out of Easter mass a bit disoriented, as if I'd just walked on to (supposedly) solid ground after stumbling my way over a number of sand dunes.

And this rambling post is not really just a post, but a vast number of signs and symbols arranged from bytes which are made of bits, which are just electrical charges held in certain arrangements, this way and that...

Quick, close the curtain!

Agony and Ecstasy

2003-04-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

It was a good Easter weekend. Spent all weekend in the Texas Hill Country on the Frio river. A lot of it sitting in one of those folding armchairs with my legs dangling into the cold, fast-running water while watching my kids and friends splashing and having lots of kid fun. Ahhh... two days of ecstasy.

Well, Friday was better because there were fewer people at our spot, so I could take in all the natural beauty. Saturday there were more, um, river people. I'm talkiing mullets and sunglasses which looked like they came free with a box of Marlboros. I'm talking special floating tube-coolers containing beer that I quit drinking once I came of age and could buy my own beer. I'm talking some seriously ill-advised bikinis. (Granted there were some well-advised ones too, but they were way outnumbered). So yeah, the hoots and hollers of inebriated river folk and the train-wreck can't-look-away-but-don't-want-to-see-either spectre of rarely exposed flesh distracted from the natural beauty of the spot, but it was all good. We had a blast on the Frio river.

And then I was reminded of one thing that plagued me when I used to live in that part of Texas -- allergies. Mesquite pollen, cedar. I felt like someone had scooped out my sinuses with a melon baller and filled them with oatmeal. I don't think it's fair that I should have stuff coming out of my nose if I cannot get any air in through my nose. I'm just sayin'. I spent most of Saturday night trying to sleep and failing. I must have sounded like a drugged bear gasping for breath. Snort. Hack. Sniff. Agony.

We got back in plenty of time for Easter Mass, where I was sniffly and bleary and coughed a lot. I also contemplated resurrection -- not just resurrection in general, but resurrection of the body and Jesus' resurrection. I contemplated my inability to get to the wordless truth of something without having to fit it through the filter of my brain's limited understanding. If anyone has a good "how" and "why" explanation about the resurrection of the personal body, I'd like to see it. Like Agent Mulder, "I Want to Believe," but I haven't worked out any mental models to reconcile my avowed belief with my brain's understanding. So, like I say, I could use a little help here. Anyone? Anyone?

And so Easter Monday. I'm physically feeling a little better today. Now it just feels like someone scooped out my sinuses with a melon baller two days ago. And I got this residual cough that won't let go. Well, with enough drugs, I am hoping to sleep the whole night tonight. A boy can dream can't he? Not with mesquite pollen, apparently.

Happy Easter

2003-04-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

I know it's early, cause it's only Holy Thursday, and we have the contemplation of passion and death and sacrifice yet to come. But I'm about to venture to the Texas Hill Country to spend Easter with family and friends and I'll be out of Internet contact until Easter Monday.

So I wish you a Happy Easter and, even if your only observance of Easter is limited to secularized pagan rituals involving fertility symbols such as eggs and bunnies, may your Easter experience renew your appreciation of new life. Rejoice in the beauty of Spring and take time to be glad and young.

you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you're young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

--- E.E. Cummings

Poetry

2003-04-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

And after that self-serving post, I give you a page of good varietal poetry to read.

The Master of Eighth Grade

2003-04-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

I got a late start in my education. I went to school through kindergarten and lost interest in school when my parents didn't make me go anymore. I just didn't see the point in all that preachy school stuff. The "real world", as I defined it at the time, had much more to teach me. I saw school as a crutch for people who couldn't handle the "real world" well.

But as I got older, I started to come up against limits to what my pragmatic "real world" approach could do for me. I experienced frustration and self-doubt. Gradually, I awakened to the fact that I needed school to broaden my horizons and that I needn't shun the "real world" just because of my schooling.

So I had some catching up to do. And I was a quick study. A model student. So much so that I got wrapped up in my image as a good student. That became me.

I reached the eighth grade and that was my best year so far. I was the best student I knew. I got to know the eighth grade material so well that I started to help the teacher teach the other students. I actually taught some classes. I had authority and status. And that status made me even more attached to the truths that I taught in eighth grade to the other eighth grade students. So I stayed in eighth grade and taught eighth grade because I was good at it.

I became the master of eighth grade.

-------------------------------------------------------------

You know of course that I'm lying. No, of course, I have a graduate degree in "real life" (whatever that is.)

The story above is an analogy of my spritual life to date. It explains as closely as I am able the spiritual malaise I felt Saturday night around a campfire at a retreat where I was helping to.... teach...spiritual truths....to eighth grade students. Sigh.

At the climax of the retreat I was giving, when all of the retreatants were experiencing the closeness to God the retreat was designed to elicit, I was feeling far away. On the outside looking in, remembering the excitement of new spiritual progress. Of the "beginner's mind." Of not knowing instead of being one who "knows." Or has deluded himself that he knows.

Actually that's not fair. I am not a hypocrite. (At least not in that sense.) I believe in what I teach. The eighth grade level spiritual truths that I have attained have served me and my family well and when I get up to talk about them I depend with my whole heart on their truth and utility in this spiritual life.

But I am the still just the master of eighth grade. And ninth grade scares the shit out of me.

I have some unlearning to do.

Never Mind: a Nine Inch Nails experience.

2003-04-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I feel pretty dumb. I pointed to Skull Bolt yesterday because I admire the guy's writing style and that it reminded me of some other poets I like. Today I went back and read more, as I tend to do when I like someone's writing, and.. well... hmmm.

I still like the guy's writing style. But I cannot endorse it because I cannot stomach what he writes about. Sprinkled with unnecessary angst and degrading images that I frankly don't want to parade in front of my psyche on a regular basis. I was enthusiastic about this guy's writing style that I hadn't vetted his writing for content all that well.

That's a frustrating dichotomy I'm faced with often. Some of the best art, from an artistic standpoint, is repugnant to me from a philosophical, spiritual standpoint.

It's like my experience when I was first exposed to Nine Inch Nails about ten years ago. I thought the music was some of the most innovative I had heard in a long time. The beat, the way they worked the industrial noises in, was way cool. I even had somebody make me a tape. I drove down the road a number of times blasting NIN at the top of my asthmatic stereo's lungs before I stopped to listen to the actual lyrics.

Oh. This would not do. The spiritual malaise that oozes from Trent Reznor's mind -- it's not necessarily the sex references and cursing, it's the seething self-loathing -- made me feel dirty. I love the driving, complex wall of sound that is their music. But I will not. Not I say. Drive down the road with the words "I want to f*** you like an animal" in my head. You choose the images and words that you put into your head. I need to choose something less life-draining than that to fill my brain. But if Nine Inch Nails ever puts out an instrumental album, I'll be so there.

What makes this problem even worse is that the Christian "alternatives" to these popular culture standouts are so abysmal. There is nowhere else to go for "Christian Pop Culture" except the bland top 40 ghetto of Contemporary Christian radio. And forget anything avant-garde, cutting edge, or alternative. It's frustrating.

So I linked a guy who writes really well about stuff I don't really like. Sent y'all there. He even apparently linked me back. And now, with a rather red face I have to make like Emily Latella and say, "Never mind." Sorry, Skull Bolt, I don't blame you if you de-link me and flame me to boot.

Creating Wealth

2003-04-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Heidi and I spoke at an Engaged Encounter retreat. It works on the Cursillo model which involves a series of presentations interspersed with periods of writing and reflection. On each EE weekend we do, Heidi and I give some of the presentations and then try to use the periods of reflection to address issues in our relationship. This last weekend, we reached some conclusions about our money situation. And last night was the first in what I am hoping is a paradigm-breaking solution for us -- the Thursday Night Planning Date.

In the past, we've each taken turns being the one saddled with the responsibility to "do the checkbook" and "pay bills." This is something neither of us like -- we enjoy the spending part just fine though. The job of accounting and paying for our life has always been a lonely, frustrating job fraught with non-communication and, at times, resentment.

At our last retreat, we decided on a more creative approach. To take this mundane dreaded task and turn it into a regular "date" at the local coffee house. Heidi and I know that we are formidable team and that together we can do anything. So why not do it together and relate our money to a larger vision for our household?

This will require that we not look at this part of our life as just getting and spending money. We agreed we need to take a broader approach to what constitutes "wealth," "capital," and "currency" and examine our expenses in light of what increases our family's true wealth.

We're talking different kinds of wealth -- social, emotional, spiritual wealth as well as material wealth. How do we use all those things? Do we deplete our material wealth unnecessarily when some other type of wealth might fit the bill? Do we acquire "capital" -- things that will help us create the various types of wealth in our home -- more than we acquire "stuff" and consumables? Does every material thing we acquire fit our family mission and vision? How are we using our various "currencies" -- time, skills, attention, information, as well as money -- to build and spread our wealth?

Heidi and I are big picture people. We're dreamers. And so our Thursday nights are set aside to put the mundane "chore" of paying bills into the big picture -- in the light of achieving our hopes and dreams as a team.

But the road to growth is littered with the rotted carcases of bold new improvement initiatives. Of this I am all too painfully aware. What we need are prayers -- yours and our own -- that we will keep the resolve to keep this practice going.

But so far, so good.

Poetry, Blogs, and Conversational Surrealism

2003-04-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

Do you like the poetry of James Tate? It can be rather absurd. How about the poetry of Charles Simic? If you like the plainspoken absurdities, the conversational surrealism, of their poetry, then you'll like Skull Bolt.

I don't know who this guy is. He stumbled onto my blog and left a comment. But I find his own brand of conversational surrealism delighfully disorienting:

Note to whoever kills me:

Please retrieve the wire from my pants pocket. Plug one end deep in my ear. Plug other end into a telephone jack (see schematic). Please give my soul this chance to make it to heaven. [Is the internet heaven?] [World Soul, collective whatever thingy?] Bury my body (no coffin please) in shallow ground, but first plant marijuana seeds right in my torso and thorax. Let it grow. Let it grow. I want to be in somebody's high conversation. Use my clothes for scare crows.

Looking Ahead?

2003-04-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

The smoke is far from clear over Iraq, and already we're starting the chest-beating towards other "rogue nations." Pax Americana, anyone?

Cautious Cheer

2003-04-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

I did not agree with the means, but I cannot help but enjoy the ends even thought the means don't justify them. It is nice to see the Iraqis celebrating in their own streets.

But I am worried about the looting and whether we can restore a legitimate and effective government to Iraq. The fact that we apparently won so quickly is good, but it means that Bush will almost certainly listen to Rumsfeld and the Pentagon instead of Colin Powell and the State Department. It is, I repeat, a bad idea to let our military run our diplomacy. As Caterina pointed out yesterday, our track record in rebuilding Afghanistan does not really speak well for the US as a nation builder.

I share the sentiments of the 46 year old man in this story:

"Before it was so bad for us - so this makes us happy. We look forward to having a new government and an end to this mess. Look, the US is welcome here - but not for long, just for a while to help the next Iraqi government get going. And after that they have no right to stay here; and while they are here they must see us as human beings and not as barrels of oil."

Redemption Blog

2003-04-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

Reusablog is my latest fun new blog find. She blogs imaginative ways to reuse stuff you'd ordinarily throw away. I am sympathetic to her cause. I like to use trash and junk in sculpture because it symbolizes the redemption we all have access to through faith. This cool little blog echoes that theme. Worth a visit.

Longhorn Lamentation

2003-04-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

Since we had no plans to watch U.T. play in the NCAA Championship last night, we caught a movie on pay-per-view instead. Sigh.

What is it about U.T. sports and big games? Can't seem to win the big ones that really count. It adds to the character of the team, I guess. Well, I am a true fan, win or lose. Thanks for a good season guys. And congrats to Syracuse.

We'll get 'em next year. Yeah.

That said, this person needs a little of what these people are selling, IMO. Every time Texas chokes in a big game, I expect a little good-natured razzing, but please.

She Toddles! She Waddles!

2003-04-08T07:32:00.000-07:00

Petunia, as of yesterday, has decided that walking might be the way to go. She's been able to walk for a month now, taking two or three unassisted steps here and there, but crawling has been her default mode. Now she toddles around with a "Hey, look at me!" smile on her face to the applause of all standers-by.

C'mon baby, do the locomotion....

The New American Century...

2003-04-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

...is scaring the piddle out of me. I'm not kidding. This war is not about oil or WMDs or Al Qaeda or even Sadaam's atrocious human-rights record. It's about American hegemony in the 21st century. This is a coherent plan, set forth by some very smart, but very wrong, people.

This (thanks Dave) is a must-read for every American. Then get it from the horse's mouth -- The Project for a New American Century.

Add to this growing wealth of journalism documenting the new Pax Americana vision.

They're even remaking the maps to the new vision.

Do we really expect the rest of the world to stand by and watch as this strategy unfolds? Sounds like a recipe for world war with US in the role of the agressor to be repelled.

Shut the Door

2003-04-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

It was an exhausting weekend. I'm tired of talking.

Heidi and I spent all day Saturday and part of Sunday at an Engaged Encounter Retreat talking to engaged couples about Christian marriage. And then we immediately went home and finished preparing a class to teach a bunch of junior high kids about Holy Week that night.

That's a lot of talking. Too much being up in front of people. Too much pretending that words are an adequate way to communicate spiritual truth. I spent too long playing the authority role of teacher.

That's a very energy-draining role. Henri Nouwen uses this example of an oven whose door is opened too often for it to build up much heat. Such is the case, Nouwen says, of one who speaks often. His "door" is open so much that the "heat" of the spirit does not build up and instead starts to dissipate. Silence then is the remedy from having your "door" (mouth) open too much.

And so I was eagerly anticipating my morning art-meditation of making bad art, albeit with a focused mind and closed mouth. And once at work, I'm pretending I'm on silent retreat, avoiding unnecessary conversation.

(Well, at least I'll try. I'm a pretty social person, so we'll see how long my resolve lasts.)

But overall it's a day to recultivate my focus. Shrink the ego. Talk less. And recoup my spirit.

Have a good, spirit filled Monday.

Time Warp

2003-04-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

While waiting in line to pay for lunch at our favorite Tex-Mex joint, I saw my old fifth grade teacher and my elementary school principal having lunch together. Apparently there was some truth to the playground allegations involving sitting in trees and people ending up in baby carriages.

This is a weird side-effect of living as an adult in the community in which I grew up. For whatever reason, all my closest chums moved off elsewhere, but many of my nodding acquaintances stuck around and I run across them pretty often. I knew them well enough back then to recognize them now but not well enough to stop and "catch up" with them.

Like the other day I was eating in a buffet restaraunt that I am loathe to admit on the Internet that I patronize. And I could have sworn that two tables to my left was -- Jennifer, I think -- a girl I knew in fourth grade who always said I had cooties. And across the restaraunt was a guy who threatened to beat me up in seventh grade. He was sitting with what looked like one of the girls we all thought were so "foxy" back then. But the other day, she just looked kind of tired. It's a miniscule time warp -- a sprinkling of long-forgotten past on top of the present moment.

It felt weird. I certainly wasn't going to go over and say hi to any of them, but eating my buffet food in the same room but at different tables felt like I was back in the old school cafeteria at Ross Elementary.

Like the fact that I work with a number of my old schoolmates' fathers, this time warp phenomenon is just part of my life in the Burbs from whence I came. You can go home again, apparently, but the feeling is surreal.

Things that go through my mind while meditating

2003-04-04T06:14:00.000-08:00

"Am I doing this right?"
"What am I gonna have for breakfast?"
"This isn't really praying, is it?"
"Ommmmmmm... God that sounds silly."
"I don't feel anything. Is this working?"
"Doh! My mind is wandering again! Bad Cody!"
"How much time is left?"
"Breathe, Breathe, Breathe. Focus, Focus, Focus."

Thomas Keating says that all of those kinds of thoughts during contemplative prayer are very natural and that you shouldn't feel bad that you have them. They are from the ego trying to reassert its dominance since it feels threatened by all the sitting and just being.

I read one time that you shouldn't chase distracting thoughts away, but just let them float across the sky of your mind like drifting clouds. Some days for me are more cloudy than others, let's just say.

Sitting and doing nothing is some pretty hard work.

Watercolor Cursing

2003-04-02T06:42:00.000-08:00

I hate watercolors.

They are runny and hard to control. No matter how little I think I'm getting on my brush, I've got too much. They highlight your poor brush technique. They are a subtle medium (and I'm a rather ham-fisted artist). They command more attention to technique than I am willing to give.

So, obviously, I must continue using watercolors. Dammit.

My morning meditation went horribly awry once I tried to apply the cursed watery color. What I ended up with only turned out acceptably after I gave up my original vision for what I wanted to do and let the piece lead me instead of the other way around.

There's a spiritual lesson in there I'm sure. But I'm mostly just disgruntled about how much I hate watercolors. Instead my meditation turned into a discursive reflection about artistic mistakes I make and how they parallel those in my life.

My mistakes, in art and in life, come from three places:

Ignorance: Lacking understanding of technique and the medium.
Inattention: Getting in a hurry or letting my mind wander.
Frustration: Clumsy attempts to wrangle control when control is not mine to be had.

And so, the bad paintings (like this morning's) must be painted, if only to assault these demons.

Granted these are not the only types of mistakes I make. I do stuff that's outright wrong that I know is wrong when I do it. But I find no artistic parallel for that. Those can be handled through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But no amount of confession will eliminate my particular demons of Ignorance, Inattention, and Frustration. That takes practice.

And so I must keep using the damn watercolors.

Being Agnes

2003-04-01T07:24:00.000-08:00

Agnes Martin has been a particular spiritual and artistic inspiration to me lately. Her paintings are deceptively simple -- minimalistic constructions of a humbling precision and luminescence. The test pattern of my mind is composed of such geometric constructions. And I find that imitating Agnes Martin's geometric minimalism is to me what playing scales is to a pianist.

"Being Agnes" takes me down to my test pattern, to a primitive visual language of space, color, line, and contrast. And in that language I find a sort of chant, a sacred word, which I can use to center myself in prayer. Centered in an awareness of perfection and divine inspiration.

Agnes writes:

"Moments of awareness of perfection and inspiration are alike
except that inspirations are often directives to action.
Many people think that if they are attuned to fate, all their
inspirations will lead them toward what they want and need.
But inspiration is really just the guide to the next thing
and may be what we call success or failure.

The bad paintings have to be painted
and to the artist these are more valuable
than those paintings brought before the public.

A work of art is successful when there is
a hint of perfection present --
the slightest hint... the work is alive.

The life of the work depends upon the observer,
according to his own awareness of perfection and inspiration.
The responsibility of the response to art is not with the artist.

To feel confident and successful is not natural to the artist.
To feel insufficient, to experience disappointment and defeat
in waiting for inspiration is the natural state of mind of an artist."

-- Agnes Martin

I feel the truth in Martin's words, though by looking at her sublime minimalist paintings it is hard to imagine her feeling insufficient.

But I know personally that art entails humility -- you're a slave to inspiration (just try to do art when the inspiration is not there), you're in a state of vulnerability to the observer, and I find I'm always accepting and expecting failure to the point of being surprised by the occasional success.

Trying my hand at my own brand of precise geometric minimalism in imitation of Agnes Martin is a particular source of humility for me. It requires of me a certain level of attention and precision that seems beyond me in other matters. I find that when I sit down and focus on the details of the art, I reach a flow state stronger than my most dedicated attempts at meditation have ever achieved. My hands, my eyes, my inner mind are at once focused and empty of all distractions, and I build my capacity for awareness and humility in the process of striving to a minimal perfection I will never attain.

But the bad paintings have to be painted. It's in that striving for perfection, subsequent failure, and striving again that I find my deepest prayer of late -- a metaphor for my struggle to imitate the perfection of Christ.

So if you see me sitting in a cafe or at my desk drawing and coloring squares or squinting over a straightedge and pencil, I'm not playing, I'm praying.

Or maybe it's both.

The Letter Opener

2003-03-31T12:34:00.000-08:00

One of my online favorites, Matthew Sturges, posted one of the best things I've read in a while. See if you can figure it out before the surprise ending. Excellent!

President Bush, please listen to your Colin

2003-03-31T08:03:00.000-08:00

Eric Umansky at Slate came up with the perfect word for the faction in the Bush Administration that is pushing for this global dominance model of forcibly spreading democracy worldwide -- "conservatopians". Brilliant.

The "Conservatopians" (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney) don't like the Powell doctrine of "overwhelming force." In order to realize their vision, they need to be able to deploy "force quickly and with dramatic positive effect in multiple places at multiple times."

But it's looking like the Conservatopian approach was the wrong choice for Iraq. We need "overwhelming force." The Powel Doctrine still rules.

And if we don't use the Powell doctrine in any conflict in North Korea (which is up next, IMO) we'll be very sorry.

So this "operational pause" and the seeming switch in strategy is a good sign to me. Maybe it means that President Bush is going to listen to Powell and the C.I.A. more and the Conservatopians less. I think Bush should listen to Colin Powell. Let the State Department, and not the Pentagon, run our foriegn policy. Ultimately it will mean fewer lives lost. And fewer ill-advised wars.

More immediately, tossing aside Rummy's ambitions and rediscovering the Powell Doctrine will ultimately save lives. What's bad for the Conservatopians is good for America.

Open Letter to Science Teachers

2003-03-31T07:01:00.000-08:00

Dear Science Teachers,

As a long time science fair judge, I recognize you as a key figure in the success of the kids you send to be judged by me and my associates. Therefore I think we need to clear some things up.

First of all, just because a kid uses a computer in his project does not make it a computer science project. Don't let your student enter into computer science category just because he uses a computer. We have to judge on the computer science aspects alone and cannot consider the kid's stellar work in physics or chemistry or microbiology. It is very frustrating to have to discount a very good project because it is in the wrong category.

If computers are the sole subject of study, enter it in computer science. If computers are just a tool used in the study of another subject, don't enter it in computer science. Simple, huh?

I know there are fewer projects in the computer science category so kids will be tempted to enter it there to "improve their chances." Don't let them. They'll get slaughtered.

Second, there are two kinds of science fair exhibits -- experiments and projects. Please don't try to make all of them seem like experiments. It is a Science *and Engineering* Fair, after all. Some projects don't fit into the "Problem, Hypothesis, Results, Conclusion" model. Some kids don't want to do a bona-fide experiment. They just want to build or invent something. Please let them.

And when they do, don't make them shoe-horn their project into a scientific method format. I know it makes it easier to grade, but it is very wrong from the judges' viewpoint. I don't ever want to see another project that goes like this:

Problem: "Can I build XXX?"
Hypothesis: "I can build XXX"
Results: "See, I built XXX."
Conclusions: "Yes, I can build XXX"

Please just let them build it and talk about how they went about it and what they learned.

Oh, and a tip, if a kid is going to do an actual experiment, encourage her to use the scientific method to answer a question to which she does not already know the answer. That makes for better science. That way it's a true experiment and not just a demonstration. I know you can't find such project ideas in one of those science project books, but your brighter students will have no problem coming up with an original idea.

And, lastly, the Bubble-gum chewing "How long will the flavor last?" types of experiments should be banned outright.

Just my opinion.

A Good Day To Be Alive

2003-03-27T13:07:00.000-08:00

I went to U.T in Austin, Texas. I've stepped over and around my share of "dragworms" -- the bums who squat along Guadalupe Blvd right off the west side of campus. Sarah Hepola made friends with one and wrote about it.

Her article made me smile. It also shamed me a bit. I chalk it up to my scatterbrained youth that I never really stopped to relate to a Dragworm as a real human being, but how many of the vagrants I encounter have I regarded with any warmth since I've grown up and become "enlightened"? Yeah, I'm not proud. We all have aspects of Jesus' teachings that we ignore.

For the record. A Rant.

2003-03-27T09:01:00.000-08:00

I want to go on record, explicitly and uequivocably, that I am against the current war in Iraq. I believe it was the wrong thing to do for a number of reasons.

I figure this is one of those posts that'll be so long no one will read it. But it will be out there for me to read. It will keep me honest. If the war goes badly from here on out, I'll be able to know that my views are not just an opportunistic chiming-in with the opposition. And if it goes exceedingly well, I'll maybe have to admit I was wrong. Maybe.

Just like those thoughtful people who support the war start their explanations with words like, "Well, nobody likes war, but...", I want to start with a disclaimer too:

I hope our troops kick ass. I'm rooting for them with every newscast I see. I am resigned to the fact that the only way out of this is to get through it. So I want our troops to achieve their objectives quickly. I want them all to live. I want all the Iraqi citizens to live. I want to see humanitarian aid going to the people of Iraq. And I want each soldier over there to experience the satisfaction of seeing the regular Iraqi citizens reveling in their freedom in a Sadaam-free Baath-free Iraq. When they get through this thing, that'll be the least they deserve. I still hold out some hope for this scenario. I pray for it.

That said, the end does not justify the means. That the current leaders of our Administration have chosen the wrong means does not mean that I cannot hope for a good end anyway. I am opposed to the war, and to the administration's vision for America's role in the world, but I support the troops.

Yeah, that's not black and white. To insist on black and white is intellectually lazy. To say that if one does not support the war one is "against the troops" is not just intellectually lazy, it's dishonest and mean-spirited. If you've used that argument in the past, shame on you. It reminds me of how the pro-choice side of the abortion issue labels their opponents "anti-choice" instead of pro-life, and how, likewise, the pro-life side labels the pro-choice side as "pro-abortion". The Orwellian partitioning of the world into "Us" versus "Them" is the root of all evil. If you condone that kind of thinking, you are part of the problem we are supposed to be fighting.

Which is my first beef with the Administration. It's been "You're either with us or against us." since 9/11. I know the president is a devout Christian. Why then are the key teachings of Jesus Christ -- you know, the beatitudes, etc. -- not evident in his rhetoric? Indeed, Jesus' words are inconvenient, and probably a little embarrassing, if you are a Christian who supports the war. Fundamentalists who believe the Bible is the literal word of God have to dabble in a little relativism themselves when it comes to justifying war.

Yeah, I know about my Church's Just War teaching. This war fails that test. The burden of proof is on the side of those who want war. Peace always gets the tie.

Administration has unilaterally set a global agenda without consulting the people it represents in any meaningful way. I've written before that I think we're seeing the start of a global crusade. It's like we've dusted off Manifest Destiny to give it another go, this time on a global scale. Fortunes of nations wane and ebb, but empires *always* fall. I want us to be a country, not an empire. But nobody asked me, did they? Did anyone ask you?

Speaking of asking, whatever happened to the good old Declaration of War? Remember the Constitution? More inconvenient words there too, I guess. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives at risk in a far away land without so much as one representative vote of approval. Well, except afterwards in a tepid show of support for a foregone conclusion.

Since 9/11 we've seen an erosion of the personal freedoms guaranteed in our Bill of Rights in an effort to fight terrorism at home. No news there. Well, forget the amendments now, this war goes straight for the body of the constitution by eroding the checks and balances and separation of powers that makes our government work.

The executive branch needs to be put back in its place. It needs to be made to ask permission like the founding fathers intended. The Administration made it very clear that it didn't need to ask permission. Three branches of government, different but equal power, all keeping each other in check, remember? Now we have a runaway executive branch that claims for itself more power at every turn. With a Congress that gets weaker and more irrelevant in response.

It is ironic that, as we send our young people off to make "Them" more like "Us" we are becoming more like "Them" to accomplish it. As we crusade off to forcibly export Democracy to the rogue dictatorships of the world, it concerns me that there might not be enough left here at home to sustain our country, much less the whole planet.

And so I consider my opposition every bit as patriotic as your support. I am a Constitutional conservative. I want the kind of government they taught us about in fifth grade. Heck, I'll settle for what we had back in 1998.

And while I don't want this current war, I want our troops to win it decisively and quickly.

Ultimately, I guess, it's the next war I am protesting. It's coming, you know. Study your maps of North Korea...

(If you've made it this far you are either really bored, know me in real life, or are from the NSA, FBI, or CIA. All are welcome. Howdy!
Oh, and if you are CIA, I think the White House should listen to you more. I'm just sayin'.)

Bake-in

2003-03-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

An email came to me from Micheal Herman via a mail list I am on with some cheerful news. In what seems to me an extraordinary act of faith, this Chicago woman purchased a huge industrial-sized solar oven with the intention of sending it to a small town in Angola. She put all $10,500 of it on her credit card. And now she's throwing a party in Chicago -- a "Bake In" if you will -- to demonstrate the oven and raise the money to pay her now large credit card bill.

Once again, just knowing that there are people who do this kind of stuff is a cheerful thing.

She apparently is chairperson of a small Angolan relief organization called Sharecircle . The oven is a capital asset that will provide jobs and prevent further deforestation in that little corner of the world. The long term vision is to obtain a microloan for this village to enable it to manufacture these ovens and sell them across Africa.

Anyway, everyone's invited to a party on South Boulevard Beach in Chicago April 5 at 3:00 at 550 Sheridan Square.. It's BYOD -- bring your own dough (both kinds. heh.)

If you can't get to Chicago, you can still contribute. I'll give some space to Patricia Deer's own words:

"The background of this project: Six years ago I met Guerra Freitas in Sierra Leon where I was teaching conflict resolution. He was a jewel of a person and wanted desparately to come to the US to study since the infrastructure in his country, Angola, was so destroyed by the decades of war. So I sponsored Guerra as a student. He graduated last year Valedictorian. He has also put enormous energy into a 501-c3 organization called Sharecircle to help Angola. You can check it out at http://www.sharecircle.org.

If you can not come but would like to contribute by sending a fishing pole instead of a fish, you can make your check out to Sharecircle. You will get a receipt for tax deduction. Send to Patricia Deer, 550 Sheridan Square, 3A, Evanston, Il. 60202.

Some of you have already been generous, and this party is one way to thank you.
Thank you for caring, may it come back to you in spades."

Punks and Monks

2003-03-25T11:23:00.000-08:00

This is a very, very cool idea. Makes me wish I had been this cool when I was younger.

The Punx and Monx community is a small household of young creative people attempting to live in community. They all have their various individual activities, jobs, piercings, etc. but come together to share meals, art, activism, and prayer. They meet for vespers and compline, celebrate worship in their home on Sundays, and travel to the nearest cathedral to worship together once a month. It's an experiment in forging an "urban monastic" lifestlye amongst progressive, artistic, tech-savvy young folks.

This makes me feel, like, 17% better about the world just knowing things like this intentional community exist. I will pray specifically for its success and that the idea spreads. God indeed is working in new ways.

The Crux of the Problem

2003-03-25T04:58:00.000-08:00

I found an online collection of the poetry of James Tate. I find his "conversational surrealism" appropos of current events, which are surreal in themselves but becoming mundane by their constant exposure on TV.

And I re-found this poem, which, to me, gets at the heart of what ails us....

Dream On

Some people go their whole lives
without ever writing a single poem.
Extraordinary people who don't hesitate
to cut somebody's heart or skull open.
They go to baseball games with the greatest of ease.
and play a few rounds of golf as if it were nothing.
These same people stroll into a church
as if that were a natural part of life.
Investing money is second nature to them.
They contribute to political campaigns
that have absolutely no poetry in them
and promise none for the future.
They sit around the dinner table at night
and pretend as though nothing is missing.
Their children get caught shoplifting at the mall
and no one admits that it is poetry they are missing.
The family dog howls all night,
lonely and starving for more poetry in his life.
Why is it so difficult for them to see
that, without poetry, their lives are effluvial.
Sure, they have their banquets, their celebrations,
croquet, fox hunts, their sea shores and sunsets,
their cocktails on the balcony, dog races,
and all that kissing and hugging, and don't
forget the good deeds, the charity work,
nursing the baby squirrels all through the night,
filling the birdfeeders all winter,
helping the stranger change her tire.
Still, there's that disagreeable exhalation
from decaying matter, subtle but everpresent.
They walk around erect like champions.
They are smooth-spoken and witty.
When alone, rare occasion, they stare
into the mirror for hours, bewildered.
There was something they meant to say, but didn't:
"And if we put the statue of the rhinoceros
next to the tweezers, and walk around the room three times,
learn to yodel, shave our heads, call
our ancestors back from the dead--"
poetrywise it's still a bust, bankrupt.
You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
You're a nowhere man misfiring
the very essence of your life, flustering
nothing from nothing and back again.
The hereafter may not last all that long.
Radiant childhood sweetheart,
secret code of everlasting joy and sorrow,
fanciful pen strokes beneath the eyelids:
all day, all night meditation, knot of hope,
kernel of desire, pure ordinariness of life
seeking, through poetry, a benediction
or a bed to lie down on, to connect, reveal,
explore, to imbue meaning on the day's extravagant labor.
And yet it's cruel to expect too much.
It's a rare species of bird
that refuses to be categorized.
Its song is barely audible.
It is like a dragonfly in a dream--
here, then there, then here again,
low-flying amber-wing darting upward
then out of sight.
And the dream has a pain in its heart
the wonders of which are manifold,
or so the story is told.

--- James Tate

Single Point

2003-03-23T07:18:00.000-08:00

"Religions are different roads converging on the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal? I believe that all religions of the world are true more or less. I say "more or less" because I believe that everything the human hand touches, by reason of the very fact that human beings are imperfect, becomes imperfect."

-Mahatma Gandhi

Sort of speaks for itself.