snapobamicon

Thanks to Catherine for this snappit of hypertexture du jour. Make your own at obamicon.me.

The best friend is likely to acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is based on the talent for friendship. — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Chabon is the master of metaphor, simile, analogy and description-with-flare. His alternative-history, speculative fiction, murder mystery is wonderful. This is NOT a quick-easy read; pages go down like massive overstuffed apple fritters and after a few too many it is wise to allow digestion time.

Winning both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, this is a book for writers and serious readers, because The World Science Fiction Society (Hugo) and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (Nebula) are, mostly, writers recognizing good writers (and give, collectively, two shits what the general public likes).

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty—I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind. — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Sketch of Portland

digital rendering by veach st glines — 2009

Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty—he forgets that it is he who has created it. He alone has bestowed beauty upon the world—alas! only a very human, an all too human, beauty. — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Portland OR — Reasons (#2)

Ingrained Optimistic Long-Term Outlook

A dozen rational reasons to enjoy living in Portland, Oregon: number two

Every city may be a melange of windswept scents, familiar neighborhood sounds, preferred flavors, and an ever-present feel under one’s sole—combined with spaces wrought by people and time; but the “thing about” Portland (easy to know but difficult to glimpse) is that a conglomeration of intelligent decisions (past and present) were made by people, concerned about individuals and their 'rights' (never easy), which has formed this city’s je ne sais quoi element. Maybe some of those decisions can be appreciated in these snippets?:

• In the 1970's a two-mile section of highway adjacent to the Willamette River was demolished; in its place, a 22-block long/29 acre public park was built.
• The Oregon Lottery has grown since 1984 to encompass: video lottery machines, keno, scratch-its, megabucks, and powerball.
• Begun in 1917, the International Rose Test Garden covers 4.5 acres and contains over 7,000 rose plants of approximately 550 varieties.
• Although domestic partnerships and civil unions are legal, Oregon still has not legalized same-sex marriages (like the more forward-thinking states of Massachusetts and Connecticut).
• Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, a 9½ acre garden adjoining Reed College, features more than 2,500 rhododendron, azalea, and companion plants.
• Oregon's Death with Dignity Act allows physicians to assist certain terminally ill patients (who request it) to end their lives with a lethal prescription.
• Oaks Amusement Park and Skating Rink has been open since 1905. The Oregon Zoo has promoted conservation since 1887. Founded in 1944, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is one of the nation's leading science museums.
• Capital Punishment (currently by lethal injection) is legal in Oregon. The death penalty is a jury-option for the crime of Aggravated Murder only.
• Hoyt Arboretum, a 187-acre refuge with 21 trails covering 12 miles and containing over 1,000 true species, began in 1930. All specimens have been grown from seeds collected in the wild.
• Recently Oregon joined the smarter-half of the US by banning all smoking in every public location, including bars and restaurants.
• The Portland Classical Chinese Garden opened in 2000. Almost an acre in size and located in historic old town Chinatown, the teahouse brings together the beauty and symbolism of the garden with Chinese traditional tea culture.
• In 1973, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize cannabis. Possession of less than an ounce is a misdemeanor (like a traffic violation). Medical marijuana is legal.
• The 5.5 acre Japanese Gardens have delighted visitors since 1967. All five: Strolling Pond Garden, Natural Garden, Sand and Stone Garden, Flat Garden, and Tea Garden, are peaceful and tranquil.
• Carrying a knife of any length (switchblade to sword) is legal—as long as it’s not concealed. Oregon is a shall-issue concealed pistol license state, and has very few restrictions on where a concealed firearm may be carried.
• The Keep Portland Weird slogan has its roots in:
  
  1. Voodoo Doughnuts, open 24 hours for unique pastry treats and wedding ceremonies.
  2. For indoor, glow in the dark, pirate-themed, mini-golf, try Glowing Greens.
  3. We have an annual Adult Soapbox Derby, and yes there will be injuries.
  4. Exploring the Portland Underground or Shanghai Tunnels is weird-worthy.
  5. Of course, this list would not be complete without including the smallest park in the world.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest. — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Unauthorized Portrait of MontiLee

I perused a photo of Ms MontiLee Stormer a week ago on her blog at Little Black Duck, noticed it was a particularly attractive photo and moved my eyes and brain forward. Yesterday I was "tanking" (meditating in a sensory deprivation tank) and the photo kept pestering me. Why? It could be that she is peeking around expertly disheveled loose hair and her lip color is slightly caught in her scarf — reminiscent of Lisa Bonet in Angelheart (...We don't go round murderin people allright Mister Angel?..) maybe it's a combination of the back and top lighting with her hand held just so, or that the fleur de lis pattern on her long-johns draws the eye back toward a stuffed bear who is also peeking around a pair of TV rabbit-ears. I just can't figure it out. So I do what it is I do...to rid me of my daemons.

This digital rendering was compiled from photos in her photostream. The only rule I set: use only photos of MontiLee with no others (cats or stuffed animals from a fair don't count as others and were included); a little over 20 photos were poached from her flicker site.

As the creative process took less than three hours (more a sketch) an overall theme of creepiness came to the surface. I don't know why. Point of fact: although there is an angular man's face apparent in the upper right, and a few other vague faces elsewhere, they are all artifacts of the compilation; honest, Nosferatu and his fiends were not in any of her photos.

Note to MontiLee: I apologize for not getting your permission first, but I don't think an apology is required for my 'creepy' description, because, well, you are a little creepy and that's just what floated to the surface here.

I smile when she looks at me because it’s how I was taught: you acknowledge when acknowledged. She then taps her husband on the shoulder, leans in and says in a stage whisper they probably heard in the stockroom, “Never seen one like her before.” He turns in a shuffle, and his feet drag dirt across the floor in a circle to face me. He then shuffles back to the cashier and says, “Nope.” — Excerpted from "Never seen one like you before" by MontiLee Stormer

The Story Behind the Sign

A many few years ago there was a night spent in a drinking establishment with a handful of co-workers (the story begins).  A many few beers had gone down and we were walking back to the house of the nearest member of the intox-o-me-cated (mine).  As we were walking I noticed a sign stuck in the grass betwixt sidewalk and street.

Although I dis-recall what the sign was proclaiming (which may have more to do with beers than years) I remember it was just like a realtor's temporary signage—black metal angle iron frame jammed in the ground; top-edge about waist high.  So I said..."this sign is hil-air-i-ous.  I want it."  And I began to reach down.  My friend stopped me.  Instead of don't-steal-the-sign he said, "Let the strongest man here get that for you."  Then he bent, gripped the bottom edge of the metal sign, and lifted with his knees—not his back—in a practiced clean-and-jerk motion.

The sign didn't budge a millimeter.  Of course he sliced all eight fingers; six to the bone and the two pinkies only half-as-deep.

I only retrieved this memory from long-long term storage once I saw this (photo-shopped) picture while poaching for my last digital rendering:  sharp edges.

Epilogue:  we got him to the hospital, he got stitched and bandaged, his wife hated me from that night forward, because—obviously—it was all my fault, and...I still can't recall what the sign said.  I think it was something like:  PORN KILLS.

sharp edges

digital rendering by veach st glines — 2009

He who fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you. — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Larytta music; körner union video

Thanks to Centripetal Notion, for this kanimaleidascope—the first hypertext effluvium art of 2009 worth sharing.

There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge. — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Finate

digital rendering by veach glines — 2008

People ask me, 'Don't you ever run out of ideas?'  In the first place I don't use ideas.  Every time I have an idea it's too limiting, and usually turns out to be a disappointment.  But I haven't run out of curiosity.  — Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008)

Gus 1998 - 2008

Hanging on my studio wall, higher than I can reach without a boost (remember when gimme a boost was followed by someone interlacing their fingers and bending at the waist in anticipation of a dirty foot being placed in their hands?) is a nail—obviously driven there prior to the landlords last paint-job. Suspended from that ivory-painted spike is a slender booklet. The page facing me bears a close-up image of two tanned, well-manicured, and unsoiled sudsy hands under a chrome faucet. I think the hands belong to a woman; but since the unpainted nails are short and no jewelry is visible, my assumption is only based on size and shape and in no way should be construed to mean I think men with svelte hands are effeminate. (The last phrase of that previous sentence is a lie.) Periwinkle words: National Hand Washing Awareness Week 3rd–9th, cross the lower edge of the image, over blurry white porcelain.

Below the image are thirty-one squares. I don’t have to count them to know how many there are because each one has a number in its upper right corner. Using an indigo-blue Bingo Marker, my paramour places a dot of ink in the center of each of the squares. I can always determine when she was away because catch-up dots are lighter, less-round, and a little streaked at the edges.

I’ve seen the new booklet my paramour plans to hang when each of the squares below the washing hands is dotted (I may offer to give her a boost because I love to hear her laugh). The front image shows the inside of an arm—I don’t know if it’s a man or a woman’s arm—where a needle has been inserted into a vein and taped in place. The needle is attached to a short red tube, which leads to a suspended plastic bag half-full of dark blood. I know it’s blood because of the vermilion words at the top: National Blood Donor Month.

Yesterday, when my paramour brought home the booklet that begins with a bag of blood, I thought back to when she hung the current-almost-finished one—now filled with candy-apple red and indigo-blue dots (she ran out of red on the page Prostate Cancer Awareness Week 15th–21st, with a picture of an elderly man hiking in the mountains....sometimes, less-obvious imagery is definitely better).

The worst page was the one with business-suited cyclists parading down a city street wearing: helmets, smiles, and little round mirrors at the top corner of their sunglasses. In muddy-taupe print, Bike to Work Week 12th–16th, tarnished the perfect-blue sky. That was the page Gus died.

Almost ten booklets ago, the very pregnant hausfrau—who reluctantly surrendered his care to me—was concerned that I would not be able to sleep with him in my house because, “this is a wonderful, indoor, red-tip Siamese, but a constant-he-is-yowling.” Her strongest fear, she confided, was Gus suffocating her soon-to-arrive baby.

At that time, he was the age that’s no longer kitten and not yet cat. Gangly. He was content to sit quietly in my apartment window during the day as long as I allowed him to sleep between my legs on hot nights, next to my head on cool nights, and under the covers—in my armpit—on cold nights.

The housfrau’s fear was legitimate: when I laid on my stomach, he would lie on the side of my face; if I turned my head, he would reposition himself in order to stay on my face. (I suspect he liked my warm breath.) Since I need cool air to sleep and have never been able to sleep with my head under a blanket, I slept only on my back or side.

His attention was always focused, his purr louder than fingers tapping on the arm of an overstuffed chair, and his head-butting-show-of-affection was a daily, solid, affirmation of his connection to me—his human.

He loved to play rough—my hands and wrists bore constant scratches (and a few scars) as testament—but he intuitively knew faces were off-limits. If interested in playing rough, I would sniffle, by audibly drawing a short breath in and out of my nose. He was always game. He taught me the sniffle-signal while purring in someone's lap; a few quick sniffles and he attacked the person petting him.

Gus would almost always come when his name was called (indoors). His sigh, exhaling a long-breath that left his nasal passages and lightly strummed his vocal chords, like a weary soldier, just before he fell to sleep was a goodnight I have learned to sorely miss.

Gus had an impressive vocal range and an obsessive-compulsive streak. If a door was closed which he wanted open, he would cry and meow at above normal indoor-voice-conversation level. If his meowling bothered me, I would sometimes shout at him or chase him away from the door. Then, he could—from a distant room—increase his volume until it became an angry-hurt, deep, baying, rapid-fire-howl. This, however, only happened after he taught me to hike with him in the woods.

After leaving Germany, Gus and I traveled through several American southwest states for almost half a booklet. I allowed him out of the tent almost immediately (even though he hadn’t asked) because there were no man-made objects in sight. At first, he wandered and I strolled after him. His explorations—with me always just over his shoulder—got longer; I intervened only when his path looked precarious or his destination was toward man-made objects. After a few weeks, I began to take the lead. If the sun was not too high-hot and the trail I chose was interesting for his nose and ears, he would stay with me until drawn off-path by a gecko, bird, or cooling spot of shade. At times we would switch the lead and he would move ahead (usually because he wanted to ‘break brush’ and walk anywhere but on a path). I soon learned what surfaces his tender foot pads could tolerate and subsequently chose all future hiking locations accordingly.

Once we were settled inside walls, he would yowl to go out when the weather was nice. Whenever I could, I would take him out into the forest and we would just walk together, for miles sometimes—me with a walking staff (to check for snakes in the dark nooks he liked to explore) and him with a bright orange neckband (If I called, he would come about half the time; the other half he just wondered: ‘why are you yelling? Can’t you see I’m right here?’ as his creamy-sandy-rust camouflaged him in some shady spot). Eventually, we hiked together enough that I stopped looking over my shoulder as much. If I got too far ahead (about 20-40 meters, depending on the terrain) he would mewl a high-pitched kitten-cry ‘hey, stop going so fast’.

We communicated—clearly—in a language of our own design. A click of my finger could mean get down, come here, look at me, pay attention to my hand, or stop that (the latter of which he understood but almost always disregarded unless I stood up, or stepped towards him). A closed mouth mewl with no tail movement meant either: I'm coming, I'm jumping up, wake up, or even just hi.

One most memorable occasion, we both climbed a huge flat-topped boulder where I meditated while he lay next to me listening to the birds and bugs ease the late evening into night. We were out there for several hours in the dark. He never left my side.

Four pages before he died, he became diabetic. I learned all about feline diabetes and especially how ignorant veterinarians are when it comes to the disease. I bought a human blood testing kit, pricked his ears several times a day (there were almost always a broken-capillary site, or three, visible from then on) and charted exactly how much insulin he got every day. He was fed only cans of meat and fish intended for humans; never pet food (all cat food is bad for all cats, but diabetic cat food is especially bad for diabetic cats) and I sprinkled an herbal powder on his food twice a day, which significantly lowered the insulin intolerance of his cells.

My paramour and I paid for a vacation a half booklet before he was diagnosed. A half-page before we left, Gus was almost completely weaned off of insulin and I was foolishly optimistic.

The pet-sitter was trained to administer the insulin and knew how, what, and when to feed. In the middle of that vacation I received an e-mail: ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Gus passed away.’

Of course I wanted to blame the pet-sitter, but I couldn’t. All I could think is: he trusted me more completely than any human has ever trusted me and after nearly ten booklets I let him down. At the moment he needed me, I was not there.

He knew I always insured his safety and even though I was hurting his ear and pricking his skin with shots every day—I was his human, it was OK. If I’d have been there, I would have tested his blood, I would have administered the insulin correctly, I would have fed him properly, and I would have responded immediately at the first signs of an illness. But I was in another country.

In comparison to the remorse I feel from the loss of Gus, I have never cried as fully, nor felt as long-term saddened as heavily by any other loss (human or animal) in my entirety. I can't stop reminding myself that as his fatal sickness intensified and the moment of his death neared, I wonder what he was thinking—and—know what he was thinking. Where’s my human? I need my human. Why isn't he here?