writing history

Fox Cities Trestle Bridge

2010-07-30T21:06:00.001-05:00

Fox Cities Trestle Bridge
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

Brand Free

2009-08-17T20:24:00.003-05:00

Public spaces free of branding are becoming rare. People now pay for the privilege of being in a "Brand Free" environment, but those spaces themselves are branded.

Great Egret

2009-08-17T17:25:00.001-05:00

Great Egret
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

If you look close you can see the bird in the center of the photo.

Canterbury Park

2009-08-12T20:52:00.001-05:00

Canterbury B&W
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

Fort Snelling State Park from Hwy 494

2009-08-01T14:17:00.002-05:00

Thinking Outside the Box

2009-07-24T19:09:00.002-05:00

The phrase "thinking outside the box" is a cliche and as such is still inside the box.

Longfellow Gardens

2009-07-05T20:13:00.001-05:00

Longfellow Gardens
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

Day at the Lakes

2009-06-27T22:22:00.001-05:00

Day at the Lakes
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

Pain

2009-06-20T16:56:00.001-05:00

We will always accept well intentioned pain much more readily than unintentional pain.

Washburn Park Water Tower

2009-06-20T14:59:00.001-05:00

Washburn Park Water Tower
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

The Topology of Information

2009-06-13T19:06:00.000-05:00

We are recognized through channels but we are known through streams.

A Sense of Place

2009-06-09T21:02:00.002-05:00

We can't control what we remember or why. I'm not talking about traumatic or dramatic events but rather innocuous moments that we hardly gave a second thought to while they happened yet years later we are able to recall them with such vivid recollection. One could say this is just a function of aging but I believe these spaces whether we can physically return to them or not orientate our spiritual compass. It is a place our soul remembers, that we take with us.

Lately I've been returning to the Erb Park Pool in Appleton Wisconsin. There's one there now but the one I remember has long ago been torn down. Yet the memories are so real. I'm smelling the chlorine and feel it stinging my eyes. The feel of the slippery blue pool bottom under my feet contrasting the rough stone concrete that surrounds the pool. I can see the dappled sunlight through the trees beyond the pool and hear noise of the life guards whistle above the ambiance of yelling and splashing.

It's not remembering so much as it is a conscious dreaming.

The Saturation Point

2009-06-01T09:14:00.003-05:00

I have to wonder if the current crisis in the America auto industry and the slow down in the industry as a whole is due in some part to market saturation. Given that cars are better built and lasting longer, sooner or later everyone that can afford one already has one. And the developing markets aren't there in this global recession.

Unless this is some major advance in technology I doubt that all the marketing and cup holders in the world will be enough to move the product.

Had Unexpected Company Today

2009-05-23T17:45:00.001-05:00

Cause you can't have too many cat photos on the web.

Is Photography Art

2009-05-14T19:41:00.000-05:00

The question should be put "Can any medium be Art." And of course it can but I believe there is much more freedom to be had if photography was not considered art but a craft.

This distinction is important because just as anyone can make a photograph so to anyone can anyone make a table. What makes one table worth more than another table is the same thing that makes one photograph more than another one. That a craft should somehow be beneath an art is why our modern world is so ugly, to say nothing of it's tables and photographs.

Photography in it's purest sense is a narrow medium. It is limited by so many constraints. I make the distinction of pure photography as opposed to say pictorial photography which might as well be oil painting. Nothing wrong with that but given the choice of looking at a nice oil painting and a highly manipulated photograph I'll go with the painting every time.

The Benefits of America

2009-05-02T20:45:00.000-05:00

All Americans want to take part in America’s benefits but sooner than later everyone is going to feel what those benefits are going to cost. That the President of the United States of America is telling us to cover our mouths when we cough should give you a hint of what is coming.

America has never benefited from prescriptive authority.

A Perfect World

2009-04-23T10:18:00.001-05:00

Too many people think a perfect world would be one in which all the women were attractive and all the men were gay.

Dinosaurs

2009-04-19T15:12:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows what dinosaurs sound like because of the movies but no one has ever heard a dinosaur. Belief isn't knowledge.

Free Masonry

2009-04-12T18:08:00.001-05:00

I once had a boss that was a Free Mason, so I had an opportunity at the time to become a Free Mason. You have to have a Mason vouch for you to be considered for membership. As an outsider I was naturally curious and had Masonry cloaked with intrigue and conspiracy. So I asked the Mason, suppose we were walking down the street together and both saw a billboard, would he as a Mason see something in the billboard that myself as a non-Mason would miss? He said he wouldn’t. After that I pretty much lost interest in Free Masonry.

Perfection Lost

2009-04-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

The perfection of a photograph is now beyond question since every pixel can be manipulated but because of that, no photograph will ever be perfect.

The Real Value of Art

2009-04-04T19:34:00.001-05:00

The real value of art is seeing the same thing people long dead saw. You can say that about the sun & moon but it isn't the same.

Where is my Quail Gun?

2009-04-01T19:59:00.002-05:00

I can't confirm that Henri Cartier Bresson said, "You don't need a machine gun to shoot quail", but anyone familiar with firearms and photography knows what Henri was talking about. It a finesse thing, not from the bunker thing.

Even in 35mm's hey day these cameras were few and for experts only. Leica made it's reputation on that wisp of a moment it was able to capture faster than any other camera.

After todays digital cameras run through their programed gesticulations they will take a picture, whether that moment is what the photographer intended is up for grabs. Marketing says the photographer will be happy with the image and the engineers will confirm it is an image.

It comes down to what it was designed to do and responsiveness and image quality are not top design priorities.

February Twilight

2009-03-08T19:45:00.001-05:00

Nokomis Parkway
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

Party Like It's 1979

2009-02-26T21:17:00.003-06:00

Marketing Intense

2009-02-16T15:52:00.000-06:00

I see a lot of products on the shelfs that use the adjectives intense or extreme to describe themselves. Maybe it’s because I’m older but I take great pains to avoid intense and extreme things. Even as a young man the only thing I liked that could be described with those adjectives was rock music and that was only because of the volume levels.

Extreme, and intense are quite popular these days, you seem them everywhere. They play a big part in the post literate tribal experience. I see a direct correlation between the increase of tribalism and the lack of appreciation or the inability to a comprehend beauty.

A Return to the Wild

2009-02-03T13:48:00.002-06:00

I know there is currently a lot of stimulus money looking for a place to be useful so I'd like to purpose a project I would like to see receive funding. I would like to establish a government program that would be dedicated to returning domesticated cows and chickens to the wild. I realize this an ambitious project and it isn't going to accomplish it's goal overnight. If we look at how long it took to domesticate the cows and the chickens we should get some idea of how long it will take to return them to their undomesticated state.

Yes I agree it will be slow going at first and there may be many failures but close your eyes and imagine the magnificent sight of the first wild cow running free across the prairie or how proud we will all be to see a flock of chickens sitting on the low branches of a tree on a summer evening. It we start immediately someday our children's children will hear the lonesome "cluck cluck cluck" of the chicken or the haunting "Mooo" of a cow and realize they are truly in the untamed wilderness.

Let us start this endeavor as soon as possible so these noble animals can take there place along side of wild turkeys and wild boars and return to their feral state.

Planing a Vacation North

2008-12-30T20:31:00.002-06:00

Living in Minneapolis no one ever thinks of taking a trip north in mid winter. We all congratulate ourselves on being able to drive our vehicles through 4 inches of snow and consider ourselves hardy compared to citizens to our south.

After a few seasons of this one tends to become complacent. Oh sure there are those individuals who snowfall after snowfall still don’t know where to park and are having to make repeated trips to the impound lot, but in a Darwinian sense those people will always make some predator a nice meal.

For the rest of us when a Minnesota winter no longer is a challenge there has to someplace to go and there is.

That’s why I’m planning a vacation to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories of Canada in late January. While not quite in the Arctic Circle, Yellowknife offers adventure as well as amenities.
Here are some snapshots.

That last picture is one of the apartments available in Yellowknife. Space is tight so you'd probably have to share it with those two gentlemen.

Christmas Day Road Trip

2008-12-29T16:18:00.001-06:00

Christmas Day Road Trip
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

Virtual Saints

2008-12-05T17:28:00.002-06:00

I’ve been reading the G. K. Chesterton book about St. Thomas Aquinas. This has me thinking about the life of saints in general. I’m no expert but it seems the more modern the saint the more heavy lifting has been required. Taking care of the poor is hard work.

What about the people who spend more time in a virtual world than they do in the actual world. I’m wonder if that counts for anything in celestial terms. Personally I think it does, I think everything counts.

It makes me wonder how long it will be before the Catholic church grants sainthood to someone for their online behavior.

Bad Year All Around

2008-11-06T18:53:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the dearth of posts but this has been a bad year for me. I’ve been sick with a sinus infection for most of the year, had surgery for it in September and I’m finally starting to get better. This summer my new car was rear ended for the second time. A week ago I put down my pet cat of the last fifteen years. There are probably more but I'd rather not dwell on the past.

Pumpkins

2008-10-13T11:45:00.003-05:00

Adulthood

2008-08-21T21:22:00.003-05:00

Since the draft was stopped, America has no real passage into adulthood, which is a shame seeing all the thirty-something children running around.

So as a public service I’d like to forever recognize the moment when an adolescent achieves adulthood.

It is the moment when the individual realizes that outside of any religious faith, or their immediate family and friends, there is no intrinsic meaning to their existence beyond which they make for themselves.

They either figure it out or they don’t.

Where I Get My Haircut

2008-08-19T11:47:00.003-05:00

Some Notes on Photography

2008-08-11T09:38:00.003-05:00

Photographs happen two ways- they are made/constructed/ posed- in a studio or on a location
or
they are found/discovered/uncovered/revealed - street photography/photo-journalism.

Photographs are much stronger when they show instead of tell.
+ are captured in the moment instead of staged or posed.

DON'T PHOTOGRAPH TREES

SEEING EVERYTHING
A photograph should give you the feeling that you are seeing everything
– that nothing is being cropped out
– self contained
–complete

A photograph splits time.

Because of the sentimentality a photograph can elicit, photography always borders on kitsch.
Preexisting Forms - Cliche
Sentiment & Nostalgia - Kitsch

A photograph should have an entrance and an exit.

I have never liked Photographic Pictorialism even in its current form.

What is the reason to look at a photograph more than once?
to Remember?

Don't seek beauty – beauty will appear when it wants to.

Peeling paint is equivalent to what exactly?

EVERYTHING LOOKS THE WAY IT LOOKS

Failure Rate
-----------------
Redundancy

A Day of Constricted Possibilities

Found on the internet attributed to Matisse,
"Don’t try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out. ”

The world seems to organize itself in front of my camera.

THERE – Photography as editing - pointing. To focus is to exclude.

The Photographic Series
photography's cumulative effect - - -
Supporting evidence? (investigations produce evidence)
Finding examples?
Proof - of what?
(that the first one wasn't a lucky shot)
Scientific, the repeatability of a hypothesis?
The attraction and madness of collections
The last one justifies the first one

As evidence
Over experience

A compression of Dimensions.
One eye that doesn't blink.

The Best Smell in the World

2008-07-24T19:21:00.000-05:00

The cedar wood smell from a freshly sharpened pencil.

Book Trader

2008-07-16T10:36:00.002-05:00

Garage

2008-07-14T16:00:00.001-05:00

Garage
Originally uploaded by Kurt Peters

OK OK

2008-07-09T12:08:00.002-05:00

Russian Politicians

2008-06-28T16:21:00.000-05:00

I’m sure they have everyone’s best interest at heart.

Art Problems

2008-06-28T14:21:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure where I read about art problems, maybe Andy Warhol, or it might have been David Byrne, anyway it was a long time ago. From what I remember art problems were defined as problems one encounters in the creation of a work of art. Examples might be finding the right shade of blue, or getting that neck and shoulder to look right in a drawing. These problems differ from life problems which everyone has, things like where did I put my car keys or how the hell am I going to pay the rent this month.

The nice thing about having art problems is they tend to over shadow life problems which are in general a lot more stressful than art problems.

The End is Near...12 Days to be Exact

2008-06-24T19:08:00.000-05:00

The odds of a scientist creating a black hole in his laboratory that will eat the universe is pretty remote but that probability is going to increase dramatically in twelve days.

In twelve days someone in Meyrin Switzerland is going to flip a switch (probably more than one) and the Large Hadron Colider is going to come on line. The most complex device ever built by mankind is going to boldly take us where no man has gone before. Let’s hope it doesn’t kill us in the process.

These guys say it won’t.

Dairy Queen

2008-06-10T08:24:00.002-05:00

Clinton Avenue

2008-06-02T13:48:00.003-05:00

Memorial Day

2008-05-26T18:15:00.003-05:00

Lakewood Cemetery

Portland Lake Motors

2008-05-25T11:17:00.001-05:00

A Fresh Brand

2008-05-23T15:42:00.001-05:00

Digital photography is in need of a fresh brand. I know everyone loves the camera they have. I love my Nikon D300 but it’s implementation of all it’s controls is the result of a long legacy of camera making.

Digital photography needs the equivalent of a Glock in the handgun industry. Before manufacturing handguns Glock made military shovels, or entrenching tools to use the vernacular. They didn’t have say Colt’s legacy of gunsmithing to contend with when they looked at making handguns. Reducing a handgun to the equivalent of a tool like the shovel they were already making yielded a revolutionary handgun.

What is also interesting is seeing how the “old world” gun makers like Smith & Wesson or Walther reinterpret this thinking.

Winter Bird

2008-05-15T15:30:00.002-05:00

33 Years

2008-05-08T19:35:00.005-05:00

State of Art

1st digital camera, 1975

Nikon D3, 2008

Secession Anyone?

2008-05-06T09:07:00.004-05:00

TJ Proechel has my vote, but I suspect he'd be happier with my donation.

Takes photographs too.

The Portable View Camera

2008-05-02T18:49:00.000-05:00

It’s funny people are never satisfied. A modern 12 Megapixel DSLR is capable of enlargements at quality levels that rival medium format cameras in the old film days. At 8x10 the resolution rivals an 8x10 film contact, well under magnification maybe there’s a difference.

So instead of lugging a view camera, film holders, and trying to compose under a hood on ground glass, we have a small SLR and if your are fastidious maybe a tripod.

The problem is few people ever see the potential of these cameras unless they go to a gallery.

The venue for great photographs is very small, but that is going to change.

Lamenting the Loss of the Photogenic

2008-04-26T15:50:00.003-05:00

Anyone who invests in a good camera today suddenly realizes the Untied States isn’t as photogenic as it use to be. Everything has become internalized. Tony Schwartz pointed this out years ago in his book The Responsive Chord. We have become these compacted units of individual knowledge and there is less and less physical space for this knowledge to inhabit.

We are long past the stage where we would let anything develop organically of it’s own accord. We have lost so much of what is interesting about us. The atomization of a common culture has left us with nothing in common.

Misunderstanding Trees

2008-04-23T22:02:00.000-05:00

We are not yet at the point in human evolution where we really understand trees.

The Last Analog Generation

2008-04-14T20:06:00.001-05:00

I’m not sure but I suspect I’m one of the last of the analog generation. I’m 50 years old and have lived the majority of my life in the fuzzy, good enough analog world. The break from the analog to digital has been so fast that the benefits of analog are seldom noted.

I think the hardest part to let go of is the notion of the infinite. With analog there was always the possibility of coming closer and closer to perfection. There was no ceiling. Digital always imposes that limitation. You have this many bits and bytes to work with, no more and no less. That said, viewed as an aggregate the binary world offers much more than the analog world ever could.

The thing with digital is that it shouldn’t presuppose human sensibilities. The eye, the ear, they are still very accurate as analog systems. It’s best not to try to fool them.

Passion

2008-04-12T17:58:00.000-05:00

Passion or enthusiasm is a necessary element to the enjoyment of life. I think it's only noticed by its absence.

Even if passion adds little to ones direct enjoyment of life it makes suffering easier to bear. One is always working toward a goal, or sacrificing for a cause, always in a state of becoming. If one stops "becoming" we are left with just being ... just existing and that is either terrifying or terrifyingly mundane.

Heidegger talks about "for the sake of which" or "I do this because" and if you follow this to its end you find we live in a future that will never become present. A primordial future. We are always directed toward an imagined future that will never arrive. Of course the future eventually becomes present but it is never as we had imagined it.

Stop becoming or evolving toward this imagined future and we turn into an object. Animated as opposed to inanimate but pretty close to the level of a chair or a table. An object that performs a specific function within an existing system.

I am ethnically challenged in this regard, German and Danish... Christ!

The Danish character has a dispassionate involvement in the world. The Danes have at best a rather tentative hold on life and it doesn't take much for them to let go. Personally I've not committed suicide because I don't believe it will change things.

Germans... always the paranoid outsiders. I think that’s why I’m so comfortable as a photographer. Heidegger was a German, most of the good philosophers were German. You look at how other ethnicities deal with being and there is much more structure and a presupposed passion.

Passion, it can be singular or plural.

My Culture is not my World

2008-04-05T15:56:00.000-05:00

Alfred Korzybski said, “The map is not the territory.” Martian Heidegger claimed that we are completely shaped by our culture. John Culkin said, “We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re certain it wasn’t a fish.”

None of them take into account the artist. The Fluxist Joseph Beuys envisioned a society where everyone was an artist. The Internet allows this to be possible.

Meaning is where you find it and being is of our own design.

On Photography

2008-03-23T14:30:00.000-05:00

I’ve decided to start writing more about photography. I don’t know if this will turn into a photography blog but I find writing about photography interesting because it is a subject without an object. Photography? Photography of what? Yes, of what indeed.

I really can’t take politics anymore. I’ve reached my limit. I think it was when I was very sick and under heavy medication that I had fevered nightmares for several nights of John McCain becoming the GOP nominee. I’ll vote for him in November but beyond that he’s on his own. Who knows by November we could have a collapse that makes the Great Depression look like a hiccup.

If we do I’ll take pictures of it.

Getting Past Heidegger

2008-03-22T18:06:00.000-05:00

Martian Heidegger was born in 1889 and died in 1976. His philosophical inquires remain central to our age.

Bill Clinton expressed them rather succinctly when he was trying to obfuscate himself out of the Lewinsky mess.

“Depends what the meaning of is is.”

Precisely what old Martian wanted to know. What is “is”? What is the nature of being, what is “being”?

Heidegger was an unrepentant National Socialist (Nazi) so one would think his philosophy would resonate with the left politically but he was more an opportunist shaping his philosophy to match the power structure at the time, as well as selling out his mentor to the Nazi’s (he wasn’t a nice man). The conservative Leo Strauss saw Heidegger’s inquirer as a central question of our age.

The problem with Heidegger is that even for a philosopher he is very dense. That he wrote in German makes reading him in translation even harder, that and that he just made up words to express his ideas.

What ever Martian thought being is, I don’t think we can wait until we understand his interpretation. Our machines won’t let us. The Omega point, the Singularity, call it what you want. Sooner then we think the meaning of “is” will not be ascribed, it will be prescribed.

Buying a Camera

2008-03-16T15:09:00.000-05:00

With the last birthday I’ve decided to get back into photography. I got away from doing any serious shooting while it underwent the migration from analog to digital. I’ve been involved with the back end, i.e. “digital darkroom” since Photoshop 3.5 replaced the behemoth Scitex Prisma. In those days the images were still shot on transparency film and scanned with a Linotype-Hell Chromagraph drum scanner.

Now that the film and scanner has been replaced with in-camera capture you could probably get a good deal on a film camera and drum scanner, of course you’d also have to find a place that still processes E-6 transparency film and really how much longer is transparency film going to be produced? That’s an incredible amount of infrastructure being replaced by a sensor in a camera.

Personally I don’t miss any of it, I never liked the darkroom that much although the water running through the print washer was kind of soothing. With the complete digitalization of the entire process, photography is undergoing something of a reinvention (that will be a future post).

Much like the film formats, there are about 4 sizes of camera sensors on the market. The point and shoot camera sensors are about the size of the finger nail on your pinky finger. The digital SLR sensors are in 3 sizes, the 4/3rds sensor which is a little bigger than a postage stamp, the APS sensor which is based on a failed film format back in the analog days is a little bigger and a full frame 35 mm size sensor. Now within all those different size sensors you can fit as many pixels as you want but there are definite trade offs in image quality. 12 megapixels stuffed onto a tiny point & shoot sensor is going to produce a lot more unwanted image noise than 12 megapixels from a full frame 35 mm sensor. It all depends on what you intend to do with the images you’ve captured. If you intend them to stay in the digital world and only post them online or e-mail them a point & shoot digital camera is all you need. The higher resolution of bigger sensors only matters if you plan on printing them back into the analog world in something bigger than a 5 x 7.

So after a couple of weeks familiarizing myself with the current dSLR market which seems to be as volatile as any futures market, I’ve narrowed down my choices.

The following is really intended for camera geeks as it’s my own rather exhaustive deductive reasoning.

I don’t have any legacy lenses or systems to consider, I intend to shoot RAW at a lower ISO and post process the images. The sweet spot in the market appears to be the last versions of the 10 MB cameras. The Canon XTi while having the best sensor to price ratio was ruled out as too cheaply built and not having a spot meter. It’s 12 MB replacement the XSi is too expensive for the feature set. Live view is something I’d never use and don’t want to pay for. The Pentax K10D is a bargain now that it’s been discontinued. I like the weather proofing, although I’d be concerned with the dust cleaning/image stabilization of the sensor. That’s a lot rocking and rolling to the most sensitive part of the camera. I ruled out the Sony as down right primitive, it’s far too early in that cycle to buy into it although I think my little Sony DSC-P200 is great. After Olympus punted on their film cameras when auto focus was introduced I’ve never trusted them. Which brings me to dear Nikon, it was easier to love them when they only made film cameras. As digital cameras they don’t even reach half their life span when their replacement is introduced. The D300 replaces both the D200 and the D2x...ouch. The D80 is looking pretty good right now especially bundled with the new 18-55 mm Vibration Reduction kit lens for less than a grand.

Don’t even get me started about lenses.

The Fifty Year Plan

2008-03-09T15:39:00.000-05:00

I’m 50 years old today. After fighting a viral infection for the last few months I feel more like 90. I’m slowly recovering but even if I was in the peak of health I’d still be 50 years old. I’ve already gotten the AARP invitation in the mail.

50 is definitely a kick in the ass. Suddenly I’m on a first name basis with Death and of course the first thing Death wants to know is if I got my AARP invitation yet? But with Death wanting to have coffee with me every morning there also comes a sense of urgency. If I’m going to do anything I’d better start doing it now. Mortality tends to focus the mind.

I blame the AARP for sharing their mailing list with Death.

Being Sick

2008-02-14T19:35:00.000-06:00

The reason for the sparse postings of late is that I’ve been sick. Some viral infection that started last month and is finally going away thanks mostly to the antibiotics the size of walnuts I’ve been taking. The world recedes when you are ill in as much as your role in it consists of being sick and not much else.

The World is Waiting

2008-01-28T18:56:00.000-06:00

We want to take such good care of the world
but the world is waiting for us to die.

The Mood of the Nation

2008-01-22T10:58:00.001-06:00

Over the past year or so I have taken the time to notice the expression on people's faces while I do my grocery shopping. It isn't scientific, I don't write things down, I just make a mental note of what people's expressions tell me about their mood.

Well the results are in because I'm tried of doing this. It didn't matter if I was at Lund's in Wayzata or a Cub in the inner city, people are pissed off. I realize grocery shopping isn't really a fun activity but not only are people not smiling, they look angry or else confused. Anger and confusion were the two most common expressions I noticed. Maybe they were angry at being confused, but that's only conjecture on my part because I didn't ask anyone why.

Fox River

2008-01-11T09:46:00.001-06:00

By Candle Light

2008-01-02T20:50:00.000-06:00

Candles are a $2.4 billion dollar a year business.
Why?
It’s the light. Candlelight reconnects us to the mystery of our humanity. Candles according to the National Candle Association were first used by the Egyptians in 3,000 B.C. You are looking at a lot of human history when you look at a candle flame. That candles are used by a majority of religions is no coincidence.

As humanity continues to expand its boundaries I wondered what candlelight would be like in zero G. which lead me to this thread and perhaps mankind's greatest invention of the twentieth century, the smiley.

:-)

The Inner Experience

2008-01-01T14:56:00.000-06:00

Years ago when I was in art school I had a part time job as a security guard at the Minneapolis Art Institute. There was another guard there that pretty much kept to himself and always had his head buried in a book. I think he was reading Dostoevsky at the time. I said to him one day, “you know you’re going to become so literate that you’re not going to be able to talk to people.” He said, “yeah, it’s kinda that way now.”

That’s the thing with pursuing an inner experience, it tends to isolate. Creative types generally resurface bringing back with them something tangible, be it a work of art, a song or a book everyone can enjoy. At which point there is a reconnection with society through a gallery opening, a concert or book signing.

Then there are those to whom the inner experience is not a means but the end itself. Religious esthetes, cloistered orders, monks and yogis. I wonder if what they are giving up is worth what they are gaining or how they would even know.

It’s about how we see ourselves in time. Most of our conversations are about the past or the future, “What did you do last weekend? What are you going to do this weekend?” Few of us are comfortable saying anything about the present beyond bland generalites, “Nice shoes. Sure is cold out. I’m hungry.”

The moment is always formless.

Christmas Day

2007-12-25T16:18:00.001-06:00

Voting Blocks

2007-12-21T09:34:00.000-06:00

If viewed as voting blocks this pie chart explains a lot about politics.

Alphabetizing My Library

2007-12-18T21:47:00.000-06:00

I thought about alphabetizing my books but that would mean putting the Bataille next to the Chesterton and I’m afraid the bookshelf would spontaneously combust.

Transportation

2007-12-14T19:00:00.000-06:00

This may seem to be revolutionary thought but there was a time in our history when this would be seen as the next logical step. I’m talking about the thing versus the thing itself. What I mean is people want clean clothes not a washer/dryer. They want to get to where they’re going not necessarily an automobile.

But just as I don’t want to sit in a laundromat and wait for my load to be done, I don’t want to wait for public transportation and sit next to your smelly butt. So I have a washer and dryer and an automobile.

Since this post is about transportation and not dirty clothes I’d like to offer another way of thinking about getting from here to there. Currently there are three public surfaces that provide a means of transportation, sidewalks, bike paths, and roads. There are currently eight classifications of passenger cars. Some roads are restricted to some trucks but all roads can be driven on by all automobiles. This has got to change and would only be practical in high density urban environments.

We need new vehicles and new roads for them to drive on. The current vehicle class is according to interior volume I would propose the new vehicle class according to vehicle width. The bane of our current roads are single occupancy vehicles. People like me that are going to work. I’m proposing something between our current roads and bike paths. Whether we carve up our current roads to allow for this new class of vehicles or create new roads or both is up to the city planners.

I envision this new vehicle to to be more narrow then the current sub compact. Multiple seating would be achieved by placing additional passengers behind not along side the driver. Initially the top speed and the noise would be limited to not intimidate the bicyclists, Segway nerds (God help us) and pedestrians as well as the neighborhoods that would share this thoroughfare.

Eventually a computer would take over. Get on this road, punch in your destination and sit back and relax while a central system coordinates your destination along with everyone else’s. Your arrival time would be broadcast to those concerned.

Where would these new vehicles come from? There is a Ford plant in St. Paul that is soon to be vacated. This would require a bold commitment from both public and private concerns.

This is our future whether it is realized here or someplace else is up to the powers that be.

A Phone That Works

2007-12-13T06:25:00.000-06:00

What would you rather have? One of the current do everything cell phones or a phone that is only a phone but works all the time, everywhere, has great sound quality and battery life.

A car that can also make toast is nothing to brag about.

Boob Signing

2007-12-11T22:45:00.000-06:00

Since it appears this culture is in a state of perpetual adolescence I’ve decided rather than fight it, to just make the best of it. To that end I’d like to announce a boob signing this Saturday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the Turtle Bread Company 4762 Chicago Ave. in south Minneapolis.

Yours truly will be there Sharpie in hand to autograph any willing female breast. Tattoo gift certificates will be available to those who want a more permeant signature.

I haven’t actually OK’ed this with the Turtle Bread Company but they’re all progressive thinkers, I’m sure there won’t be a problem.

I Hated High School

2007-12-11T18:21:00.000-06:00

I hated high school not really for what it was but because it wasn’t what I considered real life. I did a work study my senior year and was working for a commercial photography studio the summer I graduated.

The point is I was anxious to leave adolescence behind and enter the adult world. I’ve been out of high school for quite some time now but it seems the majority of our culture never graduated and is still stuck in an adolescent fog.

Last weekend I saw Diana West give a talk on her book The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization at the Heritage Foundation on CSPAN2.

I wrote a post on this back in March of 2005 (anyone catch the clever reference to The Falls?).

It’s nice to have a little validation every now and then.

Winter as the Natural State

2007-12-04T10:31:00.000-06:00

In Minnesota one would think winter would be seen as the natural state and our brief summer as an aberration but everyone seems to be a bit put off by the early arrival of snow this year. Everyone except the few souls who actually go outside and recreate in the stuff.

Détournement

2007-12-03T06:38:00.000-06:00

Missing Time

2007-12-01T20:11:00.000-06:00

This is weird. I just lost twelve hours, well not really lost more like misplaced. After a late lunch I decided to crawl in bed for a long winter nap. Waking up at 6:30 I thought it was Sunday AM, not Saturday PM. I even made coffee and waited for a sunrise that never came.
I haven't done this since I had a job where I worked a twelve hour rotating shift.

32 Cameras

2007-12-01T11:50:00.002-06:00

This is a collection of the cameras I've used. They are in chronological order. I owned 18 of them.

I didn't bother to include 126 cartridge, 110, kodak disc or process cameras.

Here's a link to my Flickr page.

One After 909

2007-11-29T22:08:00.000-06:00

That Elvis didn’t do a version of One After 909 is one of the great injustices of life.

Lighter Than Air

2007-11-29T00:06:00.000-06:00

Flying paper airplanes off an aircraft carrier.

Tis the Season

2007-11-27T18:19:00.000-06:00

I love the time between Thanksgiving and the winter solstice but not for the reason most people think. Traditionally this is the time to sit back and relax. The harvest is in and the preparations for winter are done.

Grasshopper or ant winter is coming ready or not. I’m not gearing up for Christmas however much the retailers would like to see me do so. Now is the time to rest up for the winter ahead and reflect back on the year that’s been.

The blizzard switch could be thrown anytime, which I suppose explains why I have so much food and drink in the house this time of year.

Heavy Electronics

2007-11-24T12:18:00.000-06:00

Everyone of a certain age had a collection of what once was called audio visual equipment. You know slide and movie projectors, cameras, record players, tape machines, TV radio and a telephone pretty much completed the list. Overhead projectors, photographic enlargers and walkie-talkies were available but computers at that time were usually secured behind a chain link fence and not intended for the general public.

Now something the size of an iPhone can do all of that and a lot more.

Still somethings didn’t change. A good set of speakers is still going to sound better than ear buds. Cameras are still only as good as their lenses and now when you buy a camera you don’t even get a choice of film stock. And a good land line connection is still more reliable than most cell phones.

As for computers, they’re a little more available. In fact it’s practically impossible to find something that has not been computerized; either in it’s design, distribution or use.

Doing the Diner for Thanksgiving

2007-11-20T09:23:00.000-06:00

Concerning Love

2007-11-19T19:30:00.000-06:00

A man is never more vulnerable than when he asks a woman for her love.

Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll

2007-11-19T03:43:00.000-06:00

Drugs give you something to do when you're not having sex and the nice thing about rock n roll is that you can listen to it while doing both.
Just another sign of the infantalization of our culture.

Sanity

2007-11-16T11:50:00.000-06:00

If you begin thinking you're the only sane person, doesn't that make you insane by default?

The Obsessive

2007-11-14T18:36:00.000-06:00

Whether you’re talking about Pablo Picasso or Charles Schultz your talking about obsession. A need to do something over and over again. I often wonder if the obsessive nature of art has kept me from becoming a great artist.

I remember sitting in a Frankfurt Germany gallery showing my portfolio of photographs to the owner.

“Za are all different.” she said with a certain amount of exasperation.

I thought that was the point.

Market Penetration

2007-11-12T22:09:00.001-06:00

A snapshot of where the readers of this blog are reading it.

I Need a Part

2007-11-12T19:01:00.000-06:00

If you involve yourself with anything that’s been assembled sooner or later you’re going to need a part. Often the search itself becomes more important than the part or the purpose it was for. After all you could replace the whole thing but parts are generally cheaper than what they fit and no one likes to rethink their strategy.

The Creation Myth

2007-11-11T14:57:00.000-06:00

I’m not really sure it’s a myth.

I mean you’re here.

File This Under Culture

2007-11-10T08:00:00.000-06:00

It’s Christmas beer season!

Retelling from Memory

2007-11-09T19:53:00.000-06:00

The other night I couldn’t fall asleep and instead of counting sheep wondered if I could retell the movie The Wizard of Oz from memory. I’d seen the movie many times so it wasn’t very difficult but I fell asleep before I could get her back to Kansas.

They're Rolling Tonight

2007-11-08T22:49:00.000-06:00

In Iraq and Afghanistan and in a lot of places you couldn't find on a map.

That maybe news to you but the returning veteran knows it all too well. We don't feel the sense of loss he does, he's home and they're not and he can't help them now.

Christmas is a bitch if you're in the military and away from home, it's worse if you're in a war zone.

The Creature

2007-11-07T19:03:00.000-06:00

It often seemed of indeterminate origin.

The Center of the World

2007-11-05T06:24:00.000-06:00

The geographic concept of the center is fast disappearing.

The computer as compass.

Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

2007-11-03T06:45:00.000-05:00

A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government.
Spiro T. Agnew

All sport... is one of the few activities where young people can proceed along traditional avenues, where objectives are clear, where the desire to win is not only permissible, but encouraged.
Spiro T. Agnew

An intellectual is a man who doesn't know how to park a bike.
Spiro T. Agnew

Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.
Spiro T. Agnew

I apologize for lying to you. I promise I won't deceive you except in matters of this sort.
Spiro T. Agnew

I've been in many of them and to some extent I would have to say this; if you've seen one city slum you've seen them all.
Spiro T. Agnew

In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.
Spiro T. Agnew

Some newspapers are fit only to line the bottom of bird cages.
Spiro T. Agnew

The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands.
Spiro T. Agnew

The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap.
Spiro T. Agnew

Three things have been difficult to tame: the oceans, fools and women. We may soon be able to tame the oceans; fools and women will take a little longer.
Spiro T. Agnew

It's a strange time when you can take comfort in Spiro T. Agnew quotes.

Becoming Aroused in Yoga Class

2007-11-02T07:56:00.000-05:00

Precisely why they won’t let me attend yoga class.

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T09:26:00.000-05:00

Steve Fossett Revisited

2007-10-30T20:33:00.000-05:00

I’d bet the house they never find Steve Fossett’s remains and not because the coyotes and vultures were particularly hungry that day. Mr. Fossett simply landed his airplane got out and walked into another airplane and will never be seen or heard from again.

Shame about all that money isn’t it.

Diversity vs Uniformity

2007-10-30T16:03:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to understand what people mean when they talk about diversity I looked up the definition of the word along with its opposite; uniformity, in the New Oxford American Dictionary, part of the Apple operating system.

Click on the image for a larger view.

The synonyms for diversity certainly sound more pleasing than those for uniformity but put in a political context the synonyms for uniformity are what most people want in a government. I'd go so far as saying real change is only possible out of uniformity. There can be no change from diversity, other than by degree.

Salvation

2007-10-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

You can sink, float, or swim. Either way you're going to die.

I'd rather believe in helicopters.

The Last Flower of the Season

2007-10-26T12:20:00.000-05:00