Return To The Center

well said

 

 

 

 

 

(from http://www.thisisnthappiness.com)

 

 

Today's un-churched reading

 

 

 

 

Song of Amergin
(ancient Celtic poem)
  

I am the wind on the sea;

I am the ocean wave;

I am the sound of the billows;

I am the seven-horned stag;

I am the hawk on the cliff;

I am the dewdrop in sunlight;

I am the fairest of flowers;

I am the raging boar;

I am the salmon in the deep pool;

I am the lake on the plain;

I am the meaning of the poem;

I am the point of the spear;

I am the god that makes fire in the head;

Who levels the mountain?

Who speaks the age of the moon?

Who has been where the sun sleeps?

Who, if not I?

 

 

 

on the map of the magnificent

 

 

 

When people ask me what my favorite movie of all time is, I always tell them “Jeremiah Johnson.” JJ came out in the 70's when I was in high school and still entertained dreams of doing things that I was probably suited best for, fisherman, farmer, lighthouse keeper, or in the case of Jeremiah, a solitary mountain pilgrim. I've watched it twice recently and was struck by how much I still connect with it.  I don't know why I watched it twice.. perhaps it was to review in detail how far I have strayed from my better self... who knows..  The film isn't for everyone. For example, I tried to share my love of this movie with the kids when they were just too young, and it scarred them. The slow pace and lack of constant dialog haunts them still. The mere mention of the title now elicits eye rolls and sighs. My mistake – I should have waited until they were much older. Perhaps they never would have gotten the point at any age.. Oh well. Live and learn. There is so much that I love about "Jeremiah". The settings are all in National Parks and Monuments. Breathtaking. The overarching theme of the movie – that you can't leave your life behind for something 'better' is one that I should well have paid closer attention to during the past 40 years or so.  I loved all the main characters, and the dialog, sparse though it is, is quite witty. One of the central threads of the film is the very cool student teacher relationship that develops between the wise mountain man Bear Claw (played with absolute joy by Will Geer) and Jeremiah. Jeremiah meets Bear Claw in the mountains while unintentionally molesting Bear Claw's hunt. Bear Claw essentially rescues Jeremiah from his ignorance and teaches him the ways of the Mountains.  Here is one of their very Buddhist conversations: Bear Claw: Didn't like it down there? Jeremiah: Ought to have been different. Bear Claw: ls that so? Many a child journeys this high to be different. To get from here what their natures couldn't get them below. lt comes to nothing. Can't cheat the mountain, pilgrim. The first time I saw this film I was a teenager and completely disillusioned with school and teachers. I got fabulous grades, but thought the whole thing was a game. I carried that opinion of education all the way through college. But this film – this film planted the seed in my mind of another way, a different example of the student teacher relationship. It is something I look for to this day. The movie also had in it the notion of Church as I know it now. There is a scene towards the end where Jeremiah and another mountain man Del Gue part ways. Del Gue goes riding off into the horizon bellowing the praises of the great Rocky Mountains: “These here are God's finest sculpturings and there ain't no laws for the brave ones! And there ain't no asylums for the crazy ones! And there ain't no churches except this right here. And there ain't no priests excepting the birds! l are a mountain man! And l'll live until an arrow or bullet finds me. And then l'll leave my bones on this great map of the magnificent....”

 

The Blood-Red Circle of Greed

 

 

 

 

 

 

I consume. I kill and maim as a result. So do you (don't say that you don't.. you can keep that weak ass denial..) Welcome...  To the blood-red circle of greed. Feels good don't it, to be top of the heap? This could go on forever and it wouldn't be too long..

Sometimes old friends are best..

 

 

Buddy the Nikon D90 died a few days into the new year. His symptoms were the dreaded CHA error and the curious F90 aperture setting.  He's been sent off to the camera hospital for surgery. I won't see him again until mid February at best.   Before dropping him off to be fixed, I researched a number of other Nikon DSLR's and decided to get a D7000 camera body to have as a second camera.  The D7k (as all the cool photo dudes refer to it as) has a number of excellent things going for it:  a sealed body against dust/moisture, a magnesium frame, compatibility with all my current lenses, active D-lighting (which gives your images more dynamic range, slots for two memory cards, a bigger sensor and on and on. What my D7000 didn't have though, was a reliable autofocus system when shooting relatively close subjects with the lens close to wide open.  It consistently focused on things that were behind the object I intended to focus on, and indeed, behind things the D7k told me it was focusing on...  When I first noticed this, I blamed myself.  I thought "Oh - you dunce - you didn't notice what the camera was telling you it was focusing on.. " and I would go and retake the picture.  Then I thought "Hmm - maybe it's because the D7k with it's Joe-Big-Ass sensor is more sens-a-TEEV to subtle movements.. maybe I have to use a tripod and use the remote shutter button.." That didn't help neither.  This penchant for focusing on things in the background was evident in every lens I tried, the 50mm 1.4 Nikkor, the 35mm 1.8 Nikkor, and the 10mm Nikkor fisheye.  There's tons and tons and tons written about this D7k back focus behavior out on the interwebs.  Apparently there's a work-around for it as well,  something Nikon calls Auto Focus Micro Adjustment.  The theory is that you set the auto-focus micro adjustment for each lens you attach to your body (by taking test shots) and then the camera remembers the setting from then on... Some apparently have had success with this.  Some folks have not.  Personally - I don't want to pay a butt-load of money for a camera body and have to engage in a fucking science project to get it to give me the images that my fucking $300 point-n-shoot Canon Powershot will give me with no screwing around at all.  When I have to muck with the camera in such a way - it begins to remind me of Windows and we all know how I feel about Windows..  So last night - the D7k (who I named Charles - because he seemed like such s serious fucking camera), went back in his gold Nikon box and was returned to the store.  The store manager asked me if I had any issues with the camera and then offered "Focus issues?"   hmm..  I'm not the first one to be returning their D7k apparently.  When I explained to him what was happening, he played uninformed.  When I asked him about Canon's problems in this area, he said "Well they all have their little issues.."  When I asked him what Canon's problems were - he couldn't name one.  He did say the D7k would be better in low light than the Canon EOS 60D..  I thought to myself "Excellent - it would give me a well-lit out of focus subject.. pissa."  In the end - the store - much to their credit took Charles back and I got a full refund, even though I was outside the 7 day full refund window (it was 14 days).  I'll be sure to go back to them for future purchases..  Sigh. I miss Buddy the D90. A lot.   Buddy displayed *none* of these focus problems ever.   He was a good and truthful friend.  When he told you he was focused on something, he was true to his little camera word..  Feel better soon Buddy...

 

and here's why...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (from The Curious Brain)

 

 

  

 

my godfather is coming out with a new record..

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer:

No, Leonard Cohen wasn't really at my Baptism.  He is however, my second-favorite musician of all time next to this one, and the way that he looks at life and love and God and things of that nature is right up my alley.. so I call Leonard my Godfather.. 

 

Ahem.

So - January is good for something besides cold winds, snow, slush, Twilight Zone Republican presidential primaries, and rain.  At the end of this cold dark month Leonard, who is in his late 70's now, will be releasing his 12th studio album, "Old Ideas."

NPR is streaming the whole magilla over at their site.  Leonard fans will no doubt jump on this like a wolf on a pork chop.. 

 

2012:01:23 22:53:40

 

 

 

 

trust

 

 

 

 

they all told him that

they would

all jump

together

 

test post from chrome on ubuntu

 

 

 

 

 

back on ubuntu

 

die windows die

remember what your demons are for..

 

 

 

 

 

 

2012:01:20 23:39:53

 

 

 

 

 

Have you ever looked at a thing so long that you began to feel genuine affection towards it, or am I the only crazy one here?

 

 

 

intimacy of small things

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[]

astonishing

 

 

 

 

"The world - whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we've just begun to discover, planets already dead? still dead? we just don't know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we've got reserved tickets, but tickets whose lifespan is laughably short, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world - it is astonishing." ~ Wisława Szymborska ~ Nobel lecture The Poet and the World     via http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com