Living in Germantown has given me a brand new appreciation for birds

Hafez says:

One rosy face from the world's garden for us is enough,
And the shade of that one cypress in the field
Strolling along gracefully for us is enough.

Look at the flow of money and the suffering
Of the world. If this glimpse of profit and loss
Is not enough for you, for us it is enough.

The dearest companion of all is here. What
Else is there to look for? The delight of a few words
With the soul friend is enough.

--

Listening to Chopin in my room, both windows open and the rain pouring down outside, incense burning, watching that nocturne track on a table turning around and around, getting mechanically reanimated by a machine, itself deeply aesthetic and a definitive product of my favorite aesthetic decade. Cascading notes getting twisted up into the quiet, repetitive chaos of the rain.

I suppose it will sound hyperbolic to say it, but wouldn't it be somehow opulent to ask for another dose of this? In the interest of modesty alone, wouldn't it feel appropriate now to put away this whole business of recorded music? Surely for me one side of a good record at the right moment is enough.

This morning I experienced the glory of God on my front porch--I was eating a grapefruit at 830 in the morning, jobless "downwardly-mobile" bourgeois dilettante that I am; I was surveying the front yard. A moment of silence creeps up on you and then the foreground of Yard and Breakfast and Schedule and What-I-Am-Doing-With-My-Life starts disintegrating, like expanding holes of acid consuming a piece of paper (where the acid is the dull, stubborn insistence of the Background to be noticed). White noise becomes colored noise and suddenly I get startled to notice all of these birds, singing, taking turns, overlapping and interrupting, screaming, calling from every direction, up in the trees all around, at every distance, at varied volume, all shapes and sizes. Lord have mercy I live in the center ring of a bizarre circus. Help, my homo sapiens frame of reference is outnumbered, drowning in the chaotic net of delicate sounds and drowning in what it represents: The day-to-day routines of a million tiny winged bodies (twitching, contracting, jumping into the air, pooping, hungry again), none of whom for even a moment have felt the need of taking up the burden of self-awareness. For goodness sakes what has the Robin or the Cardinal ever done to accommodate the grand narrative of the human race, much less the arc of my life?

Surely for me a half an hour with these little chirping aliens is enough. Surely I could move back to the cement jungle of North Philadelphia and live there for the rest of my life without ever seeing another exotic-looking migratory bird, protected by the reality of one such encounter.

Tip toes

In the glass

Pre-eminent documentary filmmaker Errol Morris contributes something to the NY Times every now and again.

He's just come out with a fascinating retrospective of iconic images from the 43rd presidency, as curated by representatives of three of the major still photography proprietor: AP, AFP and Reuters.

Some of the commentary is of interest, some of it is forgettable and/or predictable. I'm afraid that many of the images are best reviewed as they were first viewed: without much interpretation.

In general, I find that the AFP collection blows the others away. However, the standout image for me is this AP shot, from Crawford, Texas, which I had never seen before:



There's so much to see here, between the varied poses of the supporting cast (esp. Rice), the lines of perspective, the horizon, the evocative setting (interrupted by the microphones). The president dominates this photo in his casual attire and confident poise. There has been from the beginning something very compelling about Bush's Texan-ness, something the Republican strategists sniffed from the get-go and then failed to capitalize on, and this shot sums up for me precisely that essence. As one facet among many, this Bush is--dare I say it--dead sexy.

The other worthy bit from Morris' piece is his closing thought, as nabbed from Oliver Wendell Holmes:

"Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., writing in 1859 (about 20 years after the first daguerreotypes appeared), called photography 'a mirror with a memory.' He writes,

'The man beholdeth himself in the glass and goeth his way, and straightway both the mirror and the mirrored forget what manner of man he was…'"

Kinds of technology

A while back I submitted this blog to a website that tracks a few basic statistics about it. Having this information available does a couple of things for me: First of all, it makes me a little embarrassed to be blogging, as I get so few visitors. Secondly, it provides me with a good laugh by tracking the google search phrases that bring my random google searcher to one of my posts.

I wanted to take the opportunity to review a few choice selections, in no particular order. Some of them are pretty surprising--I had to go to google and enter a couple of these search phrases myself to confirm that they will actually route you to this blog:

1. "the onion magazine"
I must be one of the few that finds these things funny.

2. "recent top stories"
Shockingly, this blog shows up as the third result for that phrase.

3. "too many sermon podcasts"
I feel for this guy. Perhaps he's part of an emerging constituency of internet browsers who are turning to google for some kind of therapeutic release.

4. "quotes baden powell nation of wasters"
Unfortunately my blog was unable to provide an intrepid browser with the following quote from "Recovering To Success: A Book of Life-Sport for Young Men," by an author named Robert Baden-Powell, who I have never heard of:
"'The world can be made safe for democracy, but democracy will never be safe for the world until the mental loafer is saved from himself.' There are mental loafers and wasters just as much as there are physical wasters, fellows who let themselves be guided by cheap newspapers, persuasive orators, and rotten literature and cinemas."

5. "what does frim look like"
You won't find any pictures of me on here. But you could get close by looking up the old post that discusses my celebrity look-alike.

6. "how to get a frim but and tight legs" (sic)
All time favorite.

7. "kinds of technology", "three kinds of technology", "what are the kinds of technology", and the altruistic "what kinds of technology will help the poor"
This theme, in its many variations, brings in a steady stream of random cyber-guests. What shows up on google is an old post that was made up of a quote from Ted Kaczynski's technology manifesto. My best guess of what these browsers are looking for is quick-n-dirty ideas to work into an essay, maybe for some introductory-level college class in engineering or technology theory. The following answer, provided by Yahoo(!) answers, should do for these purposes: (1) Instructional technology (2) Assistive technology (3) Medical technology (4) Technology productive tools (5) Information technology. However, if you, dear reader, happen to be one such befuddled youngster, please note that in my newly legitimate, google-result-endorsed, blogger opinion, there is no conventional over-simplification of the "kinds" of technology that can justify your question. Technology encompasses all kinds of human creations and therefore contains an infinite amount of possible uses and categories. Certainly there is no authoritative single way to divide technology into "kinds". But, I happen to think Ted's theory is worth repeating. He breaks down technology into two functional categories: tools which can be used independently and those which are dependent on other tools to be used, requiring an ever more complex system to be sustained.

8. "my hands feel heavy"

A New Year's Post

In recognition of the dawn of 2009, I have prepared the a year-end list. I am calling it "The Most Important Ideological Questions of 2008."

Unlike The Wire magazine's top 50 albums of 2008 list and Time magazine's list of Fond Farewells 2008, it is not a very practical list. This is because (1) it has only one entry, and (2) it is likely to exist in the same form at the end of 2009 (as it has for 2007 and 2006). Nevertheless and without further ado:

THE MOST IMPORTANT IDEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS OF 2008:
1. Is the world getting better and better or is the world getting worse and worse?*

I suggest that your answer to this very basic question will determine a great deal of your politics and your religion. It will certainly determine your response to the many technological developments in which we are awash.

Greg Ash is a friend from church and a graphic designer. I contributed an essay to the latest installment of the monthly digital magazine he puts out.

You can download it here.

My essay is basically a review and reflection on a recent NY Times editorial by Kevin Kelly, an influential technological-cultural theorist and writer whose name and thoughts have regularly appeared on the pages of this blog. His NYT piece (which I would recommend reading) basically claims that the written word (as located in "the book") is in the process of being replaced by the image (as located on "the screen"). This is a thesis which comes across as either techno-centrically pretentious or really obvious, depending on how you look at it.

Though it undergirds the whole essay, The Most Important Ideological Question of 2008 waits patiently for 800 words to make a cameo appearance in the concluding sentences.

*Granted: If we're looking to get basic, the question "(What) Will I eat today?" is a more influential question in determining ideology. But I have chosen to confine my list to a more abstract or rational kind of questioning.

Ode to SEATAC

Welcome Tim. (List view). Click here to filter results immediately. Show me my recent searches. Show me the WorldPerks. Switch off the personal devices. 1-L, 1-R. It’s already time for the crosschecking of doors.

Twelve minutes spent quietly bonding with my fellow patrons over a mild sense of anticipatory restlessness. Cellular conversations occur, some affectionate, some curt. When the logjam starts moving, when it is my turn to shuffle out into the aisle, I will be courteous yet assertive. We will see if I am able to quickly spot and gracefully free my carry-on from the overhead bin.

A brief rush of cold air and a narrow glimpse of the night, it’s a blast of dry warmth that greets me. Two otherwise unaffected faces with matching pairs of collared white shirts, short sleeve burgundy v-necks and navy blue dickies are rendered enigmatic, draped in long shadows by overhead lighting installed just a foot or two above. These two are standing out of the way, hands idly wrapped around the vertical, perpetually oily stainless bar of respective horizontally collapsed wheelchairs. The dress code has apparently placed one’s choice of shoes at liberty (within the inevitable confines of appropriateness): Loafers here; there, two permanently creased mesh, leather and dingy, flamboyantly sculpted foam chariots resting flatly, patiently on the unforgiving dense spring of worn blue-gray industrial carpet.

No windows in this dim tunnel, just shadowy accordion walls on the side, those lights overhead, and an unhurried jean and fleece-clad (cat enthusiast?) steady walker immediately in front. Stepping into a bright cavernous echo chamber of white noise and indoor public place white smell, stepping between streams of light evening foot traffic, I have just now received my final sincere service smile of the day, supplemented perhaps with the uplift of a shift about to end.

At the rubber-bounded conclusion of carpeting, I am re-introduced to the solid squeak of linoleum laid over cement. Left or right? There is no need to consult internationally legible signage when the business casual advance team has already begun to confidently stride towards the promise of baggage. I catch a pungent buttery whiff of Auntie Anne’s.

No discount to be found when paying the ultimate price

VALLEY STREAM, NY—Until now, late November's violence and upheaval had been confined to south and southeast Asia. This morning the terror touches down on American soil, as horrific eyewitness accounts begin to trickle in from the idyllically-named Long Island suburb:

"They took the doors off the hinges..."

"He was trampled and killed in front of me."

"They're savages..."

"They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

"There's nothing we can do. The baby is gone."