Some photos from the past week…

This article on rap music by Daniel Levin Becker catches my attention… especially this assessment of Rap music…

Rap music serves, consistently, contagiously, sometimes in spite of its own claims to the contrary, as a delivery mechanism for the most exhilarating and crafty and inspiring use of language in contemporary American culture.

… i struggle to get very much into Rap, even as i am aware of its enormous significance… i keep trying though… this article may be a window in, as it analyzes lines from a number of songs (raps?) and so could point me to some raps to listen to…

This is just it: taking words at face value is what good rappers almost militantly don’t do. They find the blind angles, the shortcuts, the secret overlaps, and use them, sometimes, to build stunning models of invention and entente, spaces where small discords combine into larger resolutions and we see, hear, how boring it would be to live in a perfect world where like belongs only with like.

… hmmm… saving this article…

… i read Heather Cox Richardson and get the overwhelming impression that democracy is crumbling and there is little we can do about it… its not a good start to the day…

228.2 lbs

… weight down when there was the possibility of up… that’s a good start to the day…

… BP has been running a little high… not sure why… weight is down overall from a year ago… need adjustment in meds?…

… yesterday filled with tech frustrations in addition to not feeling very well… hangover… headache all day… went to bed early and slept reasonably well… seven hours in bed, about six hours good sleep?…

… strained muscle in left hand… evidently my fall the other day did hurt a little something… really lucky it was not worse…

… depressed that the dems don’t seem like they will be able to get voting rights legislation passed… feels like it spells doom for democracy in the country… i struggle to believe the times we are living in… it also doesn’t feel like the Biden administration is being very smart… lots of missteps, unforced errors… also bad luck… it isn’t that we didn’t see Omicron coming… the scientists probably did… but probably didn’t see such a contagious version… the scientists are saying that most everyone will get it… one should still try to avoid it but the odds are against success in that department… how is it we don’t have adequate testing?… it’s a miserable time…

… my deep reading project is managing to uplift my spirits… having something meaningful to concentrate on helps…

… i have been carefully making my way through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, taking notes, saving quotes as i go… it is a book i have read several times and it inspires me in all kinds of ways… it is part of a list of texts that i have read and been inspired by that i have decided to re-read and really pay attention to… my quest is to see what they might have in common and weather they together have a message on how one should embrace their life, find meaning in it… a big spiritual mountain to climb, but i have been all around the base and part way up the sides in numerous places numerous times… it is time, i am thinking, for an all out assault on the summit… my 4K weeks are well beyond half done…

… Heather Cox Richardson post this morning is largely about voting rights… Biden and Harris went to Georgia and made a speech vowing to protect voting rights and urging legislators everywhere to stand up for Democracy… the Senate is the roadblock… the filibuster is the roadblock… Senators Manchin and Sinema and possibly a few others are the roadblock… all the news analysis is suggesting that Manchin and Sinema will not budge… i am presently skeptical about whether Democrats are going to be able to do anything… but, as Rachel Maddow might say… watch this space…

This may well change by the time the weekend gets here, but whoah!

…it’s late in the day… relatively speaking… i usually make my first note somewhere around 4:30 AM… its going for 3:30 PM… i started reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance… an important chapter it turned out… lots of significant content… in any case, it was time to go for my walk before i knew it…

… the day has been a little odd in structure and feeling… i told H that severe cold is coming and a snowstorm to boot… H got immediately concerned about the generator and whether it would work and so forth… we haven’t cranked it up in years so i am afraid it won’t work… the electrical system in the house has been altered so i am not even sure it will hook up to the house the way it should… i am embarrassed that we haven’t done the little maintenance needed to keep it as an option… the whole conversation sent me into a tail spin… it left me feeling so inadequate and pissed at them… uggh…

… then deal with bills that need to be paid… i adopted a policy of every piece of mail is dealt with and disposed of/filed before i can move on… traditionally i have let mail pile up on my desk, dealing with only the must pay bills and letting the rest languish… not today… successfully cleared the mail away…

… then it was prep for Salon which took longer than it should of… had to track down the emails… had to acquire the shared dropbox folder, etc., etc., etc… a full crowd sharing tonight… pent up demand i am thinking… we skipped salon last month…

… just finished editing photographs… there weren’t too many… it’s been very cold and i haven’t wanted to be out too long…

… i am tired and a little depressed…

This article on Letters Home, by Adolphus and Jonas Mekas catches my attention…

When Jonas Mekas died in 2019, aged 96, he left behind a monumental legacy. Widely recognised as the “godfather of American avant-garde cinema”, the auteur and poet’s boundary-breaking works propelled the New American Cinema movement of the 1960s and 70s to brave and brilliant new heights.

… it mentions Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg and Maya Deren as friends and collaborators with Jonas Mekas… i know of two of the four…

… Deren’s film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) “has been one of the most influential experimental films in American cinema history… the film is short and can be watched through its Wikipedia page…

… here lies a rabbit hole of substantial proportions…

… i have decided to adopt the eightfold way of Buddhism as my guide to living ethically… the eight fold way is as follows:

1. right view - that we see clearly where we are heading before beginning
2. right intention - the resolve to follow this path
3. right speech - no harm to others by our speech
4. right action - no harm to others by our actions
5. right livelihood - no harm to others by our habits and work
6. right effort - attention focused on the task at hand
7. right mindfulness - be aware of the mind and body with discernment… practice mindfulness to discern whether your activity might be harmful
8. right concentration - the dedicated practice engaged in to help bring about awakening

… it seems to have all the bases covered…

… yesterday i did an analysis of my recent purchase choices after the fact and i saw how effective such an analysis would be if undertaken before the purchase… the analysis falls mainly under paths 4, 5 and 6… you can see that analysis here…

… three items ordered from Amazon arrived yesterday… a new cast iron pot, new wheels for my desk chair and new chains for my shoes…

… wheels have been installed on the desk chair, cast iron pot immediately put to use to make Persian rice with Tadigh, chains for shoes awaiting first deployment today…

…the Tadigh stuck to the pot as expected, even with pre seasoning… i have read that pre seasoning is not as good as the seasoning one builds themselves, so this week i will be doing some seasoning building of the new pot… this will be a mindfulness activity…

… i am happy with all three purchases and feel i have made appropriate choices in consumption with the exception of purchasing through Amazon, though i could only have gotten one of the items locally…

228.4 lbs

… i expected the weight gain as i fell off the no seconds rule last night… still, if i get back on the no S track today, i expect the weight will come back off quickly… loosing weight, maintaining weight, a true Sisyphean enterprise…

Deliveries

… i am expecting some deliveries today… slip on traction cleats for my shoes, new casters for my office chair and, as it turns out (a day earlier than projected), a new cast iron pot that will replace (i hope) the last non-stick coating pan in my kitchen… i say ‘hope’ because the non-stick pan was purchased for the main purpose of making Persian rice with Tadigh… all the cookbooks advise the use of a non-stick coating pan because it is critical that the rice not stick to the pan… the advice is use lots of extra oil in any other sort of pan… we shall see… i will immediately attempt to cook the Persian rice in the new pan… very excited…

… in my pursuit of Buddhist thinking, it is appropriate to assess the rightness of these purchases, this consumption…

• the traction cleats are for my safety while walking in conditions of snow and ice
  • they replace a pair that broke
  • i did not try to repair the pair that broke
  • i ordered it through Amazon
  • i could have purchased locally
• the new casters are to make my office chair work better and to stop it from scratching up the floor
  • they replace the casters that have become frozen with hair and dust
  • i did try to repair them but failed with two out of five casters
  • the new casters are made for hard surface floors, the old ones were not
  • i ordered it through Amazon
  • i could not get them locally
• the new cast iron pot/pan was purchased to replace a pan with non-stick coating
  • i have been eliminating non-stick surface pans from my kitchen, this is the last one
  • i have been researching this purchase for a long time
  • the new pan seems quite versatile so hoping it will have multiple purposes in my kitchen
  • the new pan seems right sized for the cooking i do, which is generally only for small numbers of people
  • cast iron is not toxic and supplies iron to the diet
  • i don’t know what the impacts of cast iron manufacture on the planet are, but properly cared for, cast iron lasts many lifetimes
  • cast iron requires a certain amount of care maintenance which i have come to consider mindfulness practice
  • ordered thorough Amazon
  • was not available locally

… i am wondering if i should apply this analysis to anything i consume in an effort to know the rightness or wrongness of it… preferably before consuming…

First notes…

227.6 lbs

… feeling more rested today… not much alcohol… went to bed earlier… slept ok… awake at 2:30 AM… stayed in bed until 3:45 AM… maybe i slept a little more…

…clean out the coffee pot… get coffee water started… grind coffee beans… feed the cat… take my meds… release the hounds from the bedroom… take them outside… f***!, its cold outside… check my weather widget… in the teens… the fingertips of my right hand starting to tingle by the time we come back in… the air is so crisp and i am so warm from being inside… the contrast is wonderful… i am alive!…

… i started my quest for the principles one can lead their life by and for something that may be a legitimate alternative to the present extractive and destructive economic system… i am coming to the conclusion already that one can live their life within the system without participating so much in it… the two texts i have chosen to begin with reading are Buddhist Economics, E. F. Schumacher, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig… BE requires some reading up on the basic principles of Buddhism which also benefits the reading of Zen and the Art… from the former i learn that if one follows the eightfold paths, one will not be engaging in the worst aspects of the dominant system… from the latter i expect to learn that pursuing quality in product and experience will lead to a happier existence, which is also a subtext of Buddhism… to the extent that we all must consume to stay alive, one can make choices that are ‘quality’ choices… we have arrived at a system where mean and shabby are the rule, not the exception… i am looking forward to developing a philosophy of how to live… or, rather, confirming a philosophy of how to live and then pursuing it…

… Heather Cox Richardson writing about the Ahmaud Arbery case… the three men convicted of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced yesterday… two of them to life in prison without parole, one of them to life with the possibility of parole… she points out that justice came perilously close to not happening… she uses the case as a springboard to discussing voting rights and states rights… she notes that the SCOTUS is poised to strike down federal vaccine mandates and that the court gutted voting rights legislation… leading to the result that states have increasingly enacted restrictive voting laws and, in some cases, have installed partisans to be in charge of elections or have passed laws that provide for the overturning of election results by partisan officials… interestingly, the cry against gerrymandering has quieted, largely because it appears to be a wash overall, with neither Republicans or Democrats gaining or loosing much ground in numbers of representatives in Congress… the discussion on states rights is an interesting one… the current originalist leaning SCOTUS is bending towards the supremacy of states rights, not an unreasonable stance… the question starts to be, to what degree can you allow individual states pursue governance and policies that are favorable to one group over another… isn’t the role of the Federal Government to protect the freedom and rights of everyone across the country, and don’t they need to be able to trump states rights in some instances to do so?…

Week 01 Image Poem

woman running along the trail–bright pink knit hat

how often have i sat by this stream?–water flowing by

birds rummaging through leaf litter–slim pickings

hearing horse hooves, i look up–a car leaving the gas station

First notes…

228.8 lbs

… the weight loss trend comes to a halt… most likely water weight gain which is cyclical…

… Chas got me up extra early this AM… i think he had to go to the bathroom… i feel certain a nap will be necessary today… i can’t keep running on six hours of sleep every night… i feel a bit numbed, drained, not my usual ready to read and pay attention self… i did just rough out a number of Haiku…

… Heather Cox Richardson writing about January 6… it disturbs me that main stream media is openly discussing the possibility that Democracy won’t survive… 45 has grown stronger, not weaker… a sizable portion of the population is fine with autocracy… is maneuvering to impose minority will on the majority, a patriarchal, mostly white minority… the civil war all over again… the thought occurs to me… if the multiarchy ascends and runs the show, won’t the exploitation of minorities and people in general be challenged?… is this a sign that market capitalism can’t survive without slavery of one kind or another?… why, as E. F. Schumacher speculated, shouldn’t an economy be constructed around the principle of making every life better, allowing every individual to grow to their full and natural potential… why should people be forced into work that does not fulfill them or make them better human beings?…

… i have had the idea to do a piece on texts that give me the hint of a different way to do things… i want to post it… just, these writings point to a different way of looking at things, a different way of living… i am not clear yet on what they add up to, but they certainly point to something… i will share it and keep updating it… my great conundrum is this… how can a new way of looking at and doing things come about when the dominant world order is so… dominating… i imagine one needs to construct a hybrid that is able to operate on its own core principles but which plugs into the bigger system as required for it not to become an isolated utopia destined to collapse under the weight of its ideals… a pragmatic way of being based on some core principles… an alternative way of living that seeks to mitigate market capitalist exploitation… Braiding Sweetgrass, Buddhist Economics, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance are three texts that come to mind as offering an alternative path… my plan is to re-read these texts and see how my ideas might solidify…

I believe the market-capitalist system I live within is fundamentally flawed and is leading to planetary destruction and a great deal of human, plant and animal misery.¹ I wonder if there is a better way. I want to imagine it can be replaced with something, it just isn’t clear what that something might be or whether replacement is even possible, given that a great deal of wealth and power has been accumulated through it. I have come across a number of texts that point to a different way. I don’t know if this different is viable or even interconnectable across the texts, but I would like to explore it and see what comes of it.

The texts I have found informative and inspiring to date are:

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
• Buddhist Economics, E. F. Schumacher
• Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Moby Dick, Herman Melville (?)

I will add more texts as I go.

My next step, when I am finished with current reading, will be to re-read these texts… where this inquiry goes from there will be determined by what I find/rediscover in the Texts.

…ever have one of those mornings, days, weeks, where, despite your best intentions and efforts, something is cropping up to steal your attention away from what you had planned to do with your time?… i don’t know what it is about the last few days, but i cannot seem to settle into the routines i have set for myself… Tuesday became about the installation of a new storm door… Wednesday became about the cleansing of my desk chair castors which had become immobilized by all the pet and human hair that had been sucked up into their spinning interstitial spaces… and today, Thursday, this early morning… derailed by a pretty long article about the wildfires in California that was worth reading, but not what i had intended to read and a dog whining at the bedroom door… a dog that when let outside began to graze on the grass which means his tummy is upset… ok cosmos, i am sure you will let me know when i can get back to my normal routines… meanwhile, i am doing my best to go with the flow…

Elisabeth Weil, ProPublica, January 03, 2022

An article in ProPublica on California’s wildfire situation… the world is burning down around us, and it’s not just California going up in smoke… the wildfires in California are among the too-obvious-symptoms of the apocalypse we are transitioning into… and yet… we haven’t woken up… we haven’t embraced the fact that life as we know it is already gone and a new reality is setting in…

… this:

That night, in Tahoe, it rained. The next morning the sky opened up again as I crossed Donner Pass. At a gas station I read a Twitter thread by the novelist Michael Chabon, a Californian, about nihilism versus existentialism. He’d read a draft of his son’s college essay in which that son tried to imagine his own future. Chabon saw his child fighting “to swim against the rising floodwaters of nihilism all around.”

Chabon understood why a person would feel that way about the world, and, in particular, about the world right now. Chabon had felt that way himself once, too. But he also knew, having lived here on Earth for a while, that nihilism is a dead end — no path out. The alternative need not be false hope, or even the belief that the world is not essentially broken and absurd. The alternative is to make your own purpose and meaning, whatever the situation.

… and this:

We can’t fix California’s wildfire problem with a big idea. We can only settle into the trans-apocalypse and work for the best future, the best present. That starts with acknowledging that our political structures have failed us and keep failing us every day. The powerful have failed the vulnerable. The old have failed the young. The global north has failed the global south. We have failed one another.

… and this:

This summer, in Kings Canyon, as the wildfires approached, firefighters wrapped giant sequoias in aluminum foil. This included General Sherman — 2,200 years old and the largest single tree on Earth. This act was meager, and it was devotional. It’s what we’ve got now. The good news is, some of the moves we need to make are easier, more straightforward and more under our control than we imagined, if we’d just allow ourselves to get them done. The bad news is that there is just going to be loss. We’re not used to thinking about the world that way. We’re not used to paying for our mistakes.

… this article mentions the fire management Native Americans practiced before western civilization arrived and began to extract, exploit, destroy… it made me want to read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer again…

226.6 lbs

… five days of weight loss… three while pursuing the No S diet approach… also meals low in refined carbs like pasta…

… it is the one year anniversary of the riot at the Capital Building… the facts available point to it as an insurrection and are beginning to detail a planned overthrow of the government… that planning continues and it is uncertain what, if anything , will be done to counter the efforts happening around the country to suppress the vote and rig the voting system… the most likely action is one flying under the radar screen, mostly… a reform of the Electoral Count Act of 1887… 45’s attempt to seize power in a way that would have the pale varnish of legitimacy was built around weaknesses in the ECA… the lack of clarity on the powers of the VP to certify being one of them… there appear to be bi-partisan efforts to shore it up… the most widely publicized efforts are a number of voting rights bills that have passed the house but are stalled in the Senate with no Republican support… some change in the filibuster rules will be required to pass any voting rights act which, at the present moment, seems unlikely… i have given up hoping on that one… and then there is the work of the January 6 Commission… it appears they will be able to demonstrate conspiracy to overthrow the government but the question is, can they do it compellingly enough to shift the narrative?… and, if so, will it shift enough?… time will tell…

… in all of this, Liz Cheny continues to be my hero for the stand she is taking… she is attempting to take down 45 and his cronies before the rabid conservatives of her state vote her out of office… she appears to be one of the few Republicans with …a spine…

… yesterday i spent much of the day trying to free the castor wheels of my office chair… so much animal and human hair was logged in them that they have become immobile and are scratching the finish of the floor in my studio… i was only able to return three of five to fully spinning order… i found replacement castors on Amazon and ordered a set with rubberized wheels designed for hard floor surfaces… if i had known when i started where i would end, i would have jumped to the end…

… we watched Matrix Resurrection last night… or, rather, H watched it and i slept through the bulk of it… alcohol has been doing me in for the last many nights… slow down on that and i might make it through an evening’s worth of viewing… my sense of it was that it wasn’t as good as the first three…

… news, via Heather Cox Richardson, that citizens are revolting in Kazakhstan… Russia and Belarus have agreed to send “peacekeeping” troops to assist… the people are fighting the corruption and poor service of their government, which is authoritarian… there appears to be worry that the protests will spread to Russia and Belarus… the internet has been shut down and there are reports of clashes between government security forces and citizens with casualties…

… ordered a cast iron pot/pan to replace the last non-stick coated pan i have in the kitchen… i am looking forward to its arrival… i am hoping to be able to make Persian rice with Tadigh in it… one needs a good non-stick surface to do that… cast iron can be mostly non-stick, but usually not completely… the advice is to use extra oil when making the tadigh… i used gift card money sent by R to purchase it… i also bought traction devices for my shoes… i had to curtail my walk yesterday because the sidewalks were slick…

… i don’t expect to be encumbered by any household tasks today… hopefully just photo editing, reading, writing then cooking will be the order of the day…

… this morning i lay in bed and tried to count my breaths up to ten… its remarkably hard to do… after about half an hour i managed it and then got out of bed… the usual routine… put water on to boil, grind coffee beans, feed the cat, take meds, let the dogs down and out… because Fiona is a clever and determined escape artist i have been escorting her out into the brisk darkness and watching her closely… i have all the holes in the fence repaired, but we have thought this so many times only to learn she has found and exploited a new weakness apparent to her but not us… it was fun to watch her sniffing along the ground, following the trails of night critters across or under the leaf litter… we all came back in and i gave them treats, which is what they are up for anyway… then they went back to bed and i prepared my coffee and came up to start the writing/reading part of my day…

First notes…

227.2 lbs

… second day of No S diet observance… weight down again…

… i spent most of yesterday installing the new storm door… it went pretty well… i have to make some adjustments to the frame that will be a bit of a pain, but it is installed and we are happy with it… the door was not as custom as i would have thought we paid for… it came with extension pieces and was more than an inch short of the full height required… it was, at least, just short of the full width of the rough opening as it should have been… the door cost us $850… its a good door… well insulated, weatherstripped, and features a screen that automatically drops down when the top window pain is lowered… for the good weather… i practiced what i learned from 4K Weeks… embrace what one is being asked to focus on in the present moment… let the other priorities stand in abeyance while this one thing claims center stage… return to the rest when it is done…

… we watched more Station 11 last night… i fell asleep… i find the current rage for telling stories in non-linear fashion a bit tedious… i get the artfulness of it… i suppose it develops a kind of suspense that might keep some hanging on waiting to figure out what it is all about… it seems more device than art to me in this case… at this moment i compare it to Georges Perec’s life which in a way, is this concept on steroids, but it works better in Perec… perhaps it works better in the book the series is based on…

… Heather Cox Richardson this morning, as expected, is all about the J6 Select Committee asking Sean Hannity to appear before it and answer some questions… Hannity will likely decline to do so on first amendment (freedom of the press) grounds… the committee’s questions were narrowly aimed at communications between Hannity and 45’s administration and it is clear that he is acting as adviser, not journalist, and, in any case, Hannity has said in public, on air, that he does not consider himself a journalist… there is a good chance the committee could compel his testimony should they wish to… whether they will or not is probably dependent on how effectively they can steer clear of the violation of first amendment rights accusations that will certainly be leveled by Trumpist conservatives… one needs also to have a clear eyed view of whether 45 will become president and how the tools of government might be used to exact revenge…

… every day, Liz Cheney is more a hero to me, as is the entire Select Committee, as every member is enduring death threats and threats to their careers in general… Cheney is currently not expected to survive the next election cycle…

… i have allowed myself to think that Democracy will not win this current struggle… one of the key ways it could stay in the game, national voting rights legislation, seems unlikely given the intransigence of Manchin and Sinema on the filibuster rule… personally, i don’t think Mitch McConnel would hesitate for a second to throw it overboard if it stood between him and something he wanted to accomplish…

… the other thing that could save democracy is the work of the J6 Committee… they appear to have a pretty clear picture of what happened… there appears to be criminal culpability on the part of 45 and senior members of his administration… but… the attempt to overturn democracy is ongoing and the partisanship is so fevered and delusional that over 70% of Republicans believe the last election was stollen from them, even though there is no audit of the election, official or otherwise, that has turned up any wrong doing, any fraud… Facts said Kelly Anne Conway, don’t matter. What people believe matters… the truest words ever uttered by a political operative… whatever you can get the people to believe is what matters… and, a majority of the people is not needed, only radicalization of enough of the minority to a fevered pitch… Trumpian conservatives are winning the belief and fever pitch game at the moment…