Thursday, April 20, 2006 A
"Observing"
6:36am
Observing closely
Thursday, April 20, 2006 B
"Testing"
8:39pm
Testing a ramble. The warm night air, hints of the summer to come, surrounds me like a cacoon. The loud orchestral music successfully drowns out the mariachi music the neighbor was playing. Julia tries to solve a puzzle with a 'DaVinci code' theme. Hopefully, the music is not distracting her concentration.
But she does well on puzzles. She always does. I still await with great curiousity my results on that Mensa test. But I will be content either way. At least I tell myself that!
I received a thoughtful notification in the email. Tom Dundee, a favorite folk singer, who I often heard on the Midnight Special midnight broadcasts on Chicago's WMFT back in the early eighties, has passed away as a result of complications from a motorcycle accident. His gentle songs and outlook are missed. The person who wrote me had found my quote of Dundee's song Delicate Balance.
It was interesting learning more about this singer I'd enjoyed so much through my big black headphones. It was funny, today, the radio DJ warned us of the dangers of listening to very loud music on those tiny I-pod earbuds. Worse, I suppose than the damage I've done to my ears with the big black ones. Always kind of looked like Mickey Mouse in those things. End of an era, I suppose. Now, for those wanting to listen furtively to music there is the 'earbud'. It was so funny in retrospect the night the headphone plug slipped out of the stereo, thereby letting all the music that had been privately filtering through the headphones to come out bursting through the two two foot tall speakers. Gramma ran into my bedroom, shouting, "What is that horrible devilish stuff you're listening to?"
I quickly popped the plug back in, leaving Gramma to her consternation.
That was another day, a long time ago, in a galaxy far away...
Saturday, April 22, 2006
"Thoughts on Earth Day"
8:10am
Words from Tom Dundee's famous song comes to me:
And its all such a delicate balance
Takes away just as much as it gives,
To live it is real, to love it is to feel
You're a part of what everything is.
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And who told you you don't have the power to change things for the better? Who told you that? Render him mute by not listening. Know you have the power.
A quote seen in my web travels:
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"We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained." - Marie Curie 1897-1934
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Find that gift, know it in your 'deep heart's core', and manifest this in the world. Know you have the power.
I know I have the power...
I will manifest my visions into reality...
They will remanifest, having been given a life of their own...
I know I have the power...
You have the power. We have the power. Claim it by knowing it. Start with the knowing and then the ways of manifesting will become clear.
Pulling it forth...
11:24am
As I thought about this, I realized this perfectly defines JOY for me, which answers the 52 Figment question, "What is your definition of JOY?"
"What brings me joy:
Creating, bringing forth from the unknown:
What I create has a life of its own!"
"To the FUTURE!"
Sunday, April 23, 2006 A
"Gradually Upgrading"
7:18pm
I've bathed, feel nice and clean...
Earlier, I got prints made from some of my recent artwork. The colors are washed out on some but not too dreadful. They are best put into the 8x10 frame, of which I only had one. So naturally the running Set animal got the preference:
You can see him to the far left:
(URL for printable running Set: "http://www.joanlansberry.com/set_run-print.jpg". The border trims nicely to 8x10.)
I also upgraded 'Charlie the night gardener's' frame, as the old one had busted when it fell too many times. I'm gradually replacing the sticky back hooks with real nails. We have to put them into the cement between the bricks, but at least the pictures won't fall down.
I say 'we', because every time I tried to hammer the nail in, I bent it badly. After three such bent nails, I asked Julia to hammer them in, and she has better luck.
Not only that, I also took one of my very stuffed drawers, and dumped its contents on the floor, amazed at the huge heap. I put back only the things I can use, throwing in the trash a large armload of panties whose elastics were so worn, they didn't stay up, but fell around my hips in a ruffle. I also put in 'the blue box' many items I'd like to fit into again. (I'm not giving up hope.) Furthermore, while I was at Staples, I got a small bag to hold the stuff I used to put in my lunch box using a plastic bag. That plastic bag was really starting to look shabby. So, yes, I am gradually upgrading all over the place.
Sunday, April 23, 2006 B
"Material Girl"
10:21pm
This is my result for the Friday Illo theme of ROBOT:
Thursday, April 27, 2006
"Project in Process"
5:50am
I got up around 4:30am, with busy thoughts in my head. I tried to go back to bed, but I am too excited about this project.
The next 52 Figment in the series is "4.16.06 :: If you could spend an afternoon with any three people (living or deceased) who would they be?"
So I woke up thinking about this, happy with my prospects.
I thought, making a universal language translater available, that a most fascinating conversation would break out between these three people. That is, unless they all clammed up and said, "I have nothing to say to you!" No, let's assume they are all feeling in a mood to debate, and explain their viewpoints. Shy me probably wouldn't have to say a word, just listen and take notes.
That said, I'd put these three people and myself at a round table with an interesting lunch appropriate to each person's taste, and listen and ask questions to get them all debating: Gurdjieff, Ayn Rand and Alain de Benoist. Benoist and Rand together should be most interesting. Rand, the emigre from Russia to the USA, fiercely capitalistic and pro USA, Benoist, the socialist, quite critical of the USA, but with a good understanding of religion, should be rather at odds with each other. The atheistic Rand, with her concept of rational self interest, well Benoist would get her to thinking. And Gurdjieff would only have interesting points to add. This is one conversation I'd LOVE to hear!
They would each agree with Gurdjieff that "the evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness.", but from there, the fur would fly.
Two Russians and one Frenchman, yes, we'll get that translater busy. Gurdijieff is the oldest, in 1866 he was born in Alexandropol in the obscure town of Kars, on the Russo-Turkish frontier. Rand is the next oldest, born in St. Petersburg, Russia in February 2, 1905. And Benoist is the youngest, December 11, 1943 in Saint-Symphorien (Indre-et-Loire) in France.
As I've said, they would agree this much with Gurdjieff that "the evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness.".
Rand would start off, "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
I would ask, "What constitutes consciousness. Certainly, reason is part of it, but what happened to the intuition? Isn't that important?"
Gurdjieff might answer:
Faith of consciousness is freedom
Faith of feeling is weakness
Faith of body is stupidity.
Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
Love of feeling evokes the opposite
Love of body depends only on type and polarity.
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feelings is slavery
Hope of body is disease.
So the two Russian born are both saying, don't go so much with the emotions. But what is consciousness? Doesn't it include the emotions? Maybe some nice clarification will result.
I think they will all agree with Gurdjieff:
"WILL IS A SIGN OF A BEING OF A VERY HIGH ORDER OF EXISTENCE as compared with the being of an ordinary man. Only men who are in possession of such a being can do. All other men are merely automata, put into action by external forces like machines or clockwork toys, acting as much and as long as the wound-up spring within them acts, and not capable of adding anything to its force."
VIEWS FROM THE REAL WORLD, p. 71
On the nature of man as a heroic being, using the focus of his will to surpass himself, they will all agree with Benoist:
"When it comes to specifying the values particular to paganism, people have generally listed features such as these: an eminently aristocratic conception of the human individual; an ethics founded on honor (”shame” rather than ”sin”); an heroic attitude toward life’s challenges; the exaltation and sacralization of the world, beauty, the body, strength, health; the rejection of any ”worlds beyond”; the inseparability of morality and aesthetics; and so on. From this perspective, the highest value is undoubtedly not a form of ”justice” whose purpose is essentially interpreted as flattening the social order in the name of equality, but everything that can allow a man to surpass himself. (False Contrasts, p. 21)" -
Alain de Benoist
So they would have enough in common to make a conversation possible, and enough different to make it very lively.
I will draw them all, I've assembled a good picture of each of them, and will put them at a dinner table. I think this shall be a very interesting project. To fully do it right, I will need to study more in depth their writings, to know just how they would answer each other. So this will be an ongoing project, not just the short one, in which I sketch them at a table, and give the basic snippets.
Sources of quotes and info:
http://www.gurdjieff.org/
http://www.aynrand.org/
http://www.alaindebenoist.com/
Benoist via Ensio Kataja: http://ensiokataja.blogspot.com/2006/04/on-being-pagan.html
7:09am
Quick sketch of the three thinkers:
Gotta run and get ready for work!
Friday, April 28, 2006
"Data Error"
5:23pm
Being fully caught up, and then some, I left work shortly after 4 o'clock. I went to the Post Office, hopeful of good news.
At first sight, I didn't think there would be anything in the big pile of catalogs, but buried among them was a small, thin envelope, with the encircled 'M' logo of Mensa. (Yes, Julia got one too, and hers was a little thicker.)
I'd hoped to be able to say I belong to the fraternity of uber smart people, the 2% of the population, the Mensans. Oh, I'd really hoped to qualify.
But alas, I don't. The letter advised that perhaps other tests I've taken in the past might possess validating scores. However, for the ACT test I took back in 1975, the qualifying score is a whopping 29. I only received a 24. My math scores must really suck.
I was feeling oh so sorrowful over this, oh, I do not want to admit just how sorrowful, when the phone rang. It quit before I could answer it. I looked at the caller ID, and a strange message appeared: DATA ERROR. Call me superstitious if you want, but I'm going to take that as a message. I'm going to take that as saying there's 'error' to this data. The tests cannot measure all aspects of one's cognitive skills. The tests certainly cannot measure success in life, regarding what one does with one's cognitive and other skills. I shall keep plugging along with my rather unique, although not Mensa quality, brain.
