On a technical note, this is pretty exciting... the movie posted above is a Flash .swf file, meaning I have control over size, quality, playback skin, and poster (still image that appears as the video placeholder), all of which I have no control over if I (or anybody) posts using Blogger's video upload. Posting .swf's can be done by uploading them to a server and linking them to your blog. Code to link your swf can be cut and paste from here.
On an artistic note, the vid is about 2 hrs. condensed to 1:10 mins. Some of it in "real time" (shot at 1 frame/2 sec. @ 30 F/sec.), and some of it further condensed in post production. Still sounding rather technical I know... but then again how do you divorce tools from artistic production? They are so very intertwined... For the music I tryed some Eno first, but the snow proved repellent to electronic forms(except for maybe static?) in favor of more direct tonalities. The punctual sounds of the piano seem to better shape time and snow. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor fit.
The snowball fight was completely unplanned (I had started filming before it was even a thought), but then thoroughly encouraged.
Also—should, per chance, you not be seeing anything... you may need to download flashplayer 9
Monday, December 3, 2007
advent snow
Saturday, November 24, 2007
tracking tracking everywhere
Everywhere I turn these days someone's mining data. I went to fry up my fishead the other night and found this tag in its jaw : projectCROOS.com and from their site : combining genetic information with digital traceability systems to track Chinook salmon stocks and individual fish for management and marketing purposes.
I guess once we've effected our environment enough to impact resources, it's time to track it. I know the situation can't be reduced simply to that point of view, but I like to step back and contextualize any given situation historically and socially—get the big picture view—before I get lost in the details. With that sort of tracking and breakdown of bio-information, one can identify what river system the salmon is from all the way back up to the spawning tributary... along with a lot of other information. Which present some pretty powerful possibilities... and therein lies the point of revolution. Where our digital age will take us, with its greatly enhanced accessibility to tracking information, revolves around that word, possibilities. Void of context, information is neutral. It can be incredibly useful and beneficial, but used, just as easily, to less noble ends. Take Rapleaf for instance, a company I stumbled across recently while googling the word "contrite."
Rapleaf is a company who aggregates other peoples information and sells it to whoever wants to pay for it— for a fee you can trace anyones e-mail address to everyplace its ever been... which not only seems unethical, but I'm surprised its legal. Often I feel that our constitution, regarding right to privacy issues, hasn't caught up with the digital age. Leech-like business models such as Rapleafs will also impact the whole social networking scene, at least amongst professionals—for how much control do we really have over where our address goes? One can go to Rapleaf and find out if one's profile is listed, but as one commentator noted, in order to do this "one must enter one’s email address. Once an email address has been entered, the profile is made. Joseph Heller would be quite impressed." In addition, if someone looks up your address, Rapleaf, as a 'courtesy,' will send you an e-mail notifying you about it. Which is good, but double pronged, since it also functions as spam. Smart, but devious. Which also applies to their site. Not unsurprisingly, the company has gotten a lot of flack. So they posted a full fledged apologia (aka "contrite") , which one surfer incisively dubbed as "Radical transparency excellently played."
We live in paranoid times. Setting the tone, from our president on down—it is, unfortunately, not unfounded.
Man that salmon head was good!! It's a little known fact that some of the best meat is in the head. Like eating an artichoke, the process has its very own rhythm—there's no quick way of doing it. It requires diligence and close examination—anatomical fascination the bonus side effect. At one point CP asked if she could have an eyeball and I said sure, handed it to her, and she popped it in her mouth. Just like that. With the unadulterated purity of a three year old. I didn't let on, but boy was I proud, in a sociological sort of way. Next time I'm going to have to try one too.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Loving the Rain
I was just warming up with the lichen post below... here we drop the photosynthetical element and are left with straight fungus, of the shitake variety, one of my favorites. Goodness from the garden. We feasted on these all week.
I couldn't resist hauling a log (alder) in for an MP photo shoot...
and from the archives: Getting a head-start in fungal culinary appreciation,
Like a lot of mushroom enthusiasts, my entry came by way of enthusiasm for the entheogenic variety. Paul Stamets, the preeminent authority on matters fungal (just down the road in Oly; see FungiPerfecti), has some great stories about his experimental forays. But beyond the entheogens,
I met his brother, John, a renown Seattle photographer, about a year ago at SAM. He told me how he helped stoke the initial enthusiasm by inviting his brother out to Seattle and introducing him to cyanescens. These days it's not something I'm too interested ingesting, but the thrill of discovery remains—even when you're not looking for them. Just the other day we were out with the kids and stumbled across a patch big enough to waste a small army (in a good way( :), right in the middle of town. It's funny that way, because I remember looking so hard for them back in the day... and not finding any. And now, only marginally interested, they so
Saturday, November 10, 2007
gone trick-or-treating
GDT's Halloweeen Headquarters
A couple of halloween and post halloween photos. CP, now three, totally remembers last year. Especially that one house with the really spooky sounds and body parts spilling from a tipped over wheelbarrow and strewn across the yard as a ghoulish man dragging an axe lurches illuminated by a strobe light... sending the kids running and crying I want to go home! I want to go home! Now!! effectively putting a spectacular end, amidst consoling explanations, to last years trick or treating. We ran into Joe this year before we got there and he said, "yeah, they toned it down this year—the demonic element is gone." Which was pretty much a perfect description and true enough—no tears this year, just full sized Butterfingers.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Like'n Lichen, take three
Lichens are so beautiful. Even beyond the flower realm of eye candy, they're conceptually satisfying too. Two kingdoms, plant and fungus, converge to form one symbiotic unit, lichen.
Algae, representing the plant kingdom, brings with it the ability to harness the sun via photosynthesis. Fungus brings the ability to harness the earth via decomposition. Functioning somewhat like a corporate merger (the verdict is still out as to the consensuality of the union...) the end effect is beneficial, expanding the range and existence of both partners. Lichens also have the fairly unique ability to fix nitrogen from the air and therefore function as good monitors of air quality.
why take three? because that's how many times I posted to arrive at Bloggers (undocumented) maximum allowed photo height...
The first posting of this photo (that I took of a cascadian lichen) was 640 x 1720 pixels. Despite the requisite html editing (which you need to do if you would like it larger than the standard Blogger automated 400 px Width), the first posting got truncated to a 595 px W. I got it to post the full 640 px W by cropping the html "H" value to 1600 px, which kinda makes sense in a 4x4 sort of way...
Also - a note on the template -
As mentioned, Bloggers automated settings are limited to posting photos at a 400 px max W. I changed my template ("main-wrapper" CSS settings) to accommodate a 640 px photo. Since this change effects other layout elements, a few other additional adjustments needed to be made as well to retain the layout aesthetic.
Changing the template requires modifying the CSS. Even if you don't know CSS this can be fairly easily done by posting something, and then viewing the source file from the browser (View/Source). That way you can see what code is effecting which element, and can work your way back to the template from there. Once you change the width, all the other elements affected by it - header, rules, side bar, etc. - need to be adjusted to accommodate the new layout as well. I just cut and paste the whole template (make sure you enable widgets), into Dreamweaver, or your html editor of choice, and use the search/find and replace function. That way you can keep track of things and have a back up copy as well.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Happy Halloween!
After involved negotiations and lengthy deliberations, we finally arrived at a win-win, (or happy-happy) decision: Princess by day, Frog at night. ( :
As for me I'm going as a pirate so I can say "Whhhaaaaat?! I'm a pirate" when I go around the neighborhood stealing kids candy...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Fall in Sixty-Six Seconds
As much as the leaves and the rain falling, it's the salmon spawning that punctuate this time of year around here.
This footage is from last week, from where the Tolt and Snoqualmie rivers converge, and from the pumpkin patch. Music is from Uncle Dave Macon's "way Down the Old Plank Road" off Harry Smith's classic American Folk Music compilation.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Marsupilian Concoctions
The show must have been pretty good because the other day while driving around she suddenly said, lets go to the museum.
We didn't go, but we went last week, on a drizzly Sunday, a perfect day to visit the Frye. It's a good show, droll, not too deep - maybe it was the special fx dept look, maybe not - either way, despite the mutational fleshiness, it seemed there was always something to make one smile. The artist puts up a solid veneer, but she also let's it crack, which is good. Time and again a monkey peaks out from behind folds of morphological skin, and smiles. There's reference to possums on the wall plaques, but to me it had more of a monkey feel. The videos were definitely a draw for my three year old and in retrospect, felt like the final destination. They made the sculptures feel more like props waiting to be animated. Not to say they weren't contributing to the animation - - watching people react was almost as much of the show as the show...
It was fun, there were more kids than usual, definitely a family pleaser, and definitely beyond disney.
I love the Frye. Even before the stellar curation of the last few years, I loved going, it's such a nice building. Low key, elegant, manageable, a soothing space. And now, some of the best shows in town. I went to the recent Dresden show at least three times. I've never spent so much time looking at a painting as I did Matthias Weischer's "Tuch". That one just really did it for me. The spatial and referential shifts were phenomenal, as was the handling of the paint - it totally succeeded as a painting. There is no way you could ever get at the experience of that painting by looking at a reproduction, it was all in the painting. And of course in me... or whoever... it always takes that doesn't it? The holy trinity of any artistic experience - artist:piece:viewer.
Monday, September 24, 2007
dada, "What's a Church?"
What, why, and how come, are the questions of the day that give entry into the world. A few times now we've encountered churches - there's that cute little onion domed greek orthodox church on capitol hill for example, - so that I've heard the question "What's a church - Was ist eine Kirche?" more than once. It's hard to explain god to a 3 year old, much less the structures of organized religion, so I've always told her I would take her someday. That day was yesterday.
Actually, we've tried on a few other occasions, but the churches were always locked. In Europe, this would be unheard of, where accessibility to god's sanctuary is 24/7.
Religion has always fascinated me - how can it not with its elaborate rituals and attempts to address the fundamental existential questions of humanity - but at the same time, I could never choose a religion out of the simple fact that each one implicitly states that they are the way, which automatically sets up opposition, and contributes to the strife and devisiveness of the world. The world is littered enough with religious wars. I'd prefer not to contribute, but would rather just practice what they all preach, peace.
I don't go to church very often, but I like the idea of it, especially in a St. Francis sort of way, nature being by far my preferred cathedral. The wilder the better, so as to invite as much of gods creation as possible. Today though, that was more than a tricycle ride away, not to mention a bit beyond our immediate mission, which was to go to a church built of walls. We ended up going to St. Peters, the closest church within tricyling distance. The congregation, as it turns out, is predominantly philipino-american, very much a Beacon Hill church, though when the pastor launched into his sermon, I wasn't so sure I was in a church...
He talked of the air we breath, pollution, the melting ice caps, the degradation of the waters of the puget sound and the duwamish, and how we, the "civilised" people, who took the land from the indians, are now raping that land, our land. Those were his words. I was stunned. It was beautiful to hear the ugly truth, because we so rarely do - not from our leaders, not in our schools, and only rarely in our daily business-as-usual lives. And not least because we're so busy being civilised... and here was this message coming from an institution that had participated in the "civilising" of the indians. He went on to talk of the dismal state of health care and how not voting, in our country, was simply irresponsible. When he was done with his sermon I had an impulse to start clapping, but this was a church, so the pastor solemnly sat down, and after a few more moments of silence everybody got up and sang a hymn. I liked the part where everybody turns around and greets those they're sitting next to. I wasn't sure what was going to happen after the service was over. I was kind of hoping there'd be a gathering. An opportunity to meet and talk. But mostly everybody just filed out and into their cars. Or in our case, onto a tricycle.
9.23
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Bridge Motel r.i.p.
Slated for development, the Bridge Motel's last dance was with artists. I've got some footage of the performances and installations, that when I get around to editing, I'll post here.
9.15
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Up Swamp Creek
Not often when backpacking does one get such spacious accommodations with full kitchen and, when the mists do part their swirling veils - such stunning views. Tents aren't too bad either, but this was a treat. We didn't see much the first day which made it all the more glorious upon waking. Baker, Shuksan, Goat, the Pickets behind us, the canadian Cascades up North, the clouds below. With so many photo ops it didn't take long to figure out that the fresh battery I had put in my camera before leaving wasn't fresh at all... it was dead. When I got done kicking myself I borrowed my brothers camera... which soon stuttered to a halt as well. But not until after we climbed Larrabee the next day, a red pile of rubbley rock, but a fun scramble nonetheless.
After two nights on Winchester we headed cross country over to the Yellow Aster Buttes. Initially we tried to navigate a ridge line that on the topo looked to be a promising possibility until real life cliff bands proved otherwise. Eventually the other side of the ridge worked out nicely, with a snowfield up top providing a fun glissade down into the valley. Tomyhoi, the other mountain we were going to climb, was not to be had. After a full night of rain (in tents and bivy), and thick morning fog, our trajectory turned downward. Out we trudged on a boletus lined trail, going as we came, in the mists.
8.23-27
Monday, September 3, 2007
Dabob Bay
A friend who I've known longer than any other friend in Seattle just built a cabin overlooking Dabob Bay. It's really beautiful. We went out to visit, and dig a compost pit... and eat crab.
Aug. 3-5
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Posessed by the Acoustic Spirit
We Love the I-90 Tunnel, Beacon Hill's bipedal gateway to Lake Washington
:late July
April 06:
These photos are from a peaceful midnight musical gathering in the tunnel. It was fun while it lasted - you can see the police headlights coming down the tunnel, spurring on the performance.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
Snow Lake
A misty monday pierced by high pitched decibels of enthusiasm: year 3 of the Snow Lake tour (this time as a Breakfast Club excursion), year 2 where miles walked outdid years lived (at least for the younger set... which is what this is all about - the next generation - getting a headstart on the splendors of nature), and year 1 of a pine martin siting (two cubs, appropriately).
7.23
Thursday, August 30, 2007
You Are Not a Girl and You Go Away
Back in sixth grade I wrote what was probably my first research paper. I remember it hardly feeling like school work at all. Partly this was due to my teacher, Mrs. Sjolund, who was very supportive and encouraging, and partly I was simply fascinated by the subject. The paper was about the social structure of baboons. Being eleven, and in Iowa, didn't afford a whole lot of field research - none, actually. The closest I ever got to where baboons live was years later, in the Dzanga-Sangha reserve in the Central African Republic. It wasn't the savannah habitat of the baboons I had studied, but a lush jungle rainforest, with elephants and monkeys as just the tip of an incredibly varied and dense profusion of life. Anyhow, that's a whole other story. What made me think of all this was a recent trip (7.22) to the zoo. And the realization that primate field research is never far from home...
"During play, a young primate is getting to know other primates and discovering his or her place in the social hierarchy of the group."
this was followed by a parentally encouraged attempt at reconciliation...
Sometime after my baboon paper my parents gave me a book about Jane Goodall. There's a lot of good people working to secure the habitats and lives of primates increasingly threatened by us, their co-primates - humans that is, whose social structure is such that we must wage war against ourselves for the greater good of the animal kingdom...
Bushmeat Project is a fairly comprehensive list of groups who are attempting to give voice and rights to species who live outside of our language and legislative loop.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Logs, Water, Spider
A couple of days after meeting Kaz I dropped by his shop and saw these cedar timbers outside. They were throwing them out, said they were going to use them for firewood... I couldn't believe it! Kaz had told me about them, how they'd got a special permit from the forest service to harvest these trees down around Mt. Rainier, how it took three days. Kaz & Co had built the tea house in the Arboretum. I'm not sure if these logs were related to that project, but they sure looked good on top of my car. I've been driving around with them ever since. ha!
I pedaled by the Jefferson Park reservoir the other day and peeked inside. It's looking impressive. It'll be nice to think of this view when standing in the park above.
A glint of green caught my eye. Then I stared and marveled. I realized...dried spider blood. There was some amazing phosphorescence going on. It was late afternoon, the sun hitting my desk sideways. The spider had gotten squished between the glass tabletop and its support, its been there for a while, months even, and now, with the suns rays hitting it just so, it totally lit up. Some crystalline refractive property of dried spider blood. I wonder if this is common knowledge or just some freak chemical reaction?
Even when not called Charlotte, spiders do not cease performing miracles. Clearly grist for Polke's palette. or wait a minute... it kinda looks like... can it be? Jesus... with a crown of thorns? no.... 
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Saturday June 23
Tis the season for outdoor eating - I've been wanting to build a table for the backyard. So when I passed a pile of wood and a FREE sign driving down Rainier, it definitely caught my eye. I got some good wood, and noticed there was more out back. It turned out to be a contractors shop, closing after 60 years. The man in charge said I should look inside, but It was late already. I stopped by the next day on my way down to the Georgetown festival. The door was closed. I knocked - and the door opened. That's how I met Kaz.
The space was filled with sixty years worth of accumulations, and so was Kaz. My intention, to find material for a kitchen remodel, was soon subverted as my gears shifted to shuffling around with Kaz as the flow of history emanated from both the surrounding objects and Kaz alike. It had been his and his father's business. The personal tactility of tools spiraled outwards into larger histories. Kaz told me how this place came to be in 1947 when he got out of the army. He came back with $300 in his pocket and found that all his tools, that he'd put in storage five years before being locked up by the U.S. government in a japanese internment camp, had disappeared. He and his father had been running the business out of the house, but they were told that you couldn't have a business in a residential district. I asked "residential? you couldn't work in a residential district?" And Kaz says, "Oh lots of people had businesses in residential areas. It was quite common..." "right, but they came down on you?" "yeah... it wasn't easy being a minority..." that became a refrain. That and his bad back. The family pooled together all their money and got the shop down on Rainier.
Kaz, and many others, were, after being wrongfully imprisoned, immediately drafted into the U.S. Army after being released from the internment camps... Uncle Sam, what a pal. Kaz luckily wasn't sent to fight, but trained others in orthopaedic emergency procedures.
I kept trying to place myself in that sort of a framework, to fathom the resilience and perseverance in the face of such gross inequities. Beyond that, I was simply enjoying Kaz's charm and caginess. When I first asked him how old he was he said 39. "Every year, over and over and over again," he'd smile. I somehow knew, even before I asked, that he wasn't going to tell me by way of such a direct and lazy question. So I offered that my dad was 78. He reflected - but not for long - 1929, he shot back. Yep. And that's how old he was too.
After two hours or so, he asked if I wanted some coffee. I remembered I had my camera, so I asked if I could take some pictures. Kaz wanted to get in on it too. So here's me. Then he told me to stop wasting film. I told him it didn't have film, that it was digital. He'd never heard of that.
It seems as we get older the past remains lucid while the here and now blends back into that unstructured and delicious primordial sense of time that we last tasted as children. After a lifetime of structured time, it seems it may be hard to let go, but Kaz rolled with it admirably well.
Here Kaz remembered he was supposed to be somewhere today - - out on Vashon Island... he takes it all in stride like I imagine those who know him well do too.
I made it down to Georgetown before the sun set. It was a beautiful evening.
Such a great place for a festival, it felt like an urban version of a twisting canyon. I was indulging in some nostalgia too - this was home from 91-95.
I felt my heart warm at the sight of Kosmo. True to form he was working away in his scrap metal yard. G-town has changed so much in the last ten years, populated with scrappy hipsters and proletariat pretensions (condos coming soon...). It was good to see the real thing. I asked him if he remembered that day he pulled a gun on us. A frisbee or a ball we had been playing with hit the side of his shack and he came out brandishing a substantial snub nosed revolver and a mean look in his eye. I've never seen him smile and he wasn't smiling now. As for my question, he just got defensive about the necessities of owning a gun.
The Master Musicians of Bukkake.
I don't get out to see music nearly enough. So this was great, I just wandered around and followed my ear.
Blackbreath.
Lesbian.
