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weekend

there are ways to tell that you've crested into middle-age, leaving youth behind. if you should, say, wake on a saturday AM and think going to the japanese garden is good idea, that might be an indication. Further, if while there you should happen to, say, wander in to a presentation of ikebana and find it fascinating, inspiring and moving, that would be another. If after that lovely experience on a lovlier autumn afternoon, you found yourself looking at couches on hawthorne or, say, at the mall 205 home depot purchasing toilet seats, anchors, bamboo blinds, rubber gloves, fire extinguishers, wood stain and brushes willingly, that would be a resounding and thundering confirmation that you are now in your mid 30's and no longer can claim 'early 30's' even though you feel no real difference between yourself now and yourself then. What can you do but submit. And surrender.

k-mac

here's some awesome paintings by our friend kathy m. we have a photograph she took hanging in our living room and a print she made hanging in our bathroom. Also, there's a portrait of us she did (you'll see it at her site) which we are currently struggling to find a home for in our house. Our previous (rental) houase had 12 ft ceilings and the painting fit perfectly there. she's awesome though. and happy to do commisions.

brain trauma, miscellany

interesting article on bob woodruff today.
we feel notable kinship w/ the symmetry of their experience. very interested to read their book as well but not until our own is written. don't want it to influence our layout or structure or whatever.

in other worlds, the blazers beat the sonics in a preseason game last night at the rose garden. got to sit in some decent seats this time. no kevin durant, no greg oden but still an entertaining game. also, a shiny brand new video screen w/ shiny new parts.

and finally: man, if i had an extra 400 bucks laying around. saw this item featured in the nytimes today. don't know if it would be updated to include new information though. how would that work? like say if i pointed it at saturn's rings. would i learn about moonlets? what about new black holes?

London

didn't shoot very much video in london so i didn't have too much to work with which will be readily apparent i believe. we were completely exhausted, staying in Victoria in an easy hotel, getting ready for a week in paris. point being london was unfortunately sort of an afterthought.

tuesday musings

from an interview w/ pema chödrön and bell hooks
that can be found in its entirety here.

Pema Chödrön: For me the spiritual path has always been learning how to die. That involves not just death at the end of this particular life, but all the falling apart that happens continually. The fear of death-which is also the fear of groundlessness, of insecurity, of not having it all together-seems to be the most fundamental thing that we have to work with. Because these endings happen all the time! Things are always ending and arising and ending. But we are strangely conditioned to feel that we're supposed to experience just the birth part and not the death part.

We have so much fear of not being in control, of not being able to hold on to things. Yet the true nature of things is that you're never in control. You're never in control. You can never hold on to anything. That's the nature of how things are. But it's almost like it's in the genes of being born human that you can't accept that. You can buy it intellectually, but moment to moment it brings up a lot of panic and fear. So my own path has been training to relax with groundlessness and the panic that accompanies it.

powers of ten

Mesas in the Nilosyrtis Mensae region of Mars

this is a possible landing site for the mars exploration rover in 2009.
click on the picture for fuller detail

more info can be found here.

jet plumes on enceladus

i know this is old news to everyone
but the implications on astrobiology are profound
and certainly exciting for everyone at jpl

self-promotion, office of

Here is an interview/podcast that i did earlier this summer. give a listen and let me know if i sound like a buffoon or not.
because i'm never sure.



topics covered: humboldt state film, LA, screenwriting, brain tumor, god

good news

yesterday marg learned that she is a finalist in the Wordstock Ten, meaning that her short fiction is going to be published in the anthology that will come next month in conjunction w/ the festival Wordstock to be held here in portland. been a long time since either of us had any substantive creative good news in a long time. some close calls here and there between us both but nothing this exciting.

way go go mm!

the sun in different wavelengths

here

rambling and sputtering

alone at home this wk as marg is in boston visiting LC and checking out our old haunts of 2 yrs ago. if you're a regular reader (read: hi mom) then you know about my bewilderment of late with these strange translucent membranes of time that slip and move around me only to dissipate as i struggle to get hold of them. things sometimes move into a surreal dream state where reality is fleeting and ephemeral, existing maybe in parallel worlds. identical motifs and objects keep returning to me seemingly of their own volition. on more than one occasion i have wondered if i am dead or in a coma and my brain is re-presenting swirled elements of the past 3 years. Shit, that makes me sound crazy but i can't articulate it any better than that. At least, i can't right now. Here's a smattering of photos
from 2 years ago in and around boston

stayed home sick on monday and tuesday so i was able to get a lot of mindless televison watching out of the way. saw season 5 of the shield and a couple movies. last night, feeling a little better, i ventured out of the house and went to see a second-run movie. i knew it would be bad since it features giant talking robots and i was ready to accept that b/c the price of admission was 3 bucks but man o' man it was absymal. should have known better.