A DOG OR A FOLK SONG

Alexander, our older brother,

set out for a great adventure.

He tore our images out of his pictures,

he scratched our names out of all his letters.

Our mother should have,

just named you Laika!

#

##

<verse>

Neighborhoods #2 (Laika)

Arcade Fire

Funeral, 2004

‘Laika’ music video, artists rendition

There really isn’t anything to write about.

It’s all been done.

The Simpson’s have already covered it.

The Existential Significance of Homer, I believe has been covered.

Google: The Simpson’s and Philosophy.  Amazon will have it for less than $10.

I wonder if they offer free shipping…

Debit or credit, ship to home or ship to store, these are the options in November so make a decision because there’s no going back, unless you have a gift receipt, and even then, I’m not so sure!

Who else is exhausted?

With a month left before the big day, I imagine there is still a lot of shipping and shopping left to do.  The key is, save your strength because the holidays are just the beginning of winter.  Especially in Colorado, where it snows into June.

Plenty of warmth, and lots of layers.

Who else wants an e-reader?

And I’m not even sure why!

I just know I want one.

It must be that #&%!ing Nook boutique inside my Barnes and Noble!

Their flashy white tables and awesome flat screen with on-screen attractive female has subliminally assured me my life is nothing without their touch-screen, read-to-me with moving-pictures technology, WiFi capable, digital array of text and color, all the rage, gotta have it now, my life is surely nothing without this device, wicked-awesome, I don’t care if it’s first gen, I just want one, e-readers.

Who else is with me?!

For $249, I can buy happiness.  At least I think that’s how it works…  I could have my numbers wrong… I should probably nail that one down…I’m sure there’s some tax involved.

Who knows?

It could be worth it.

I wonder if The Simpson’s has this one covered…

Better Google it.

And YouTube it.

On the e-reader I don’t have.  Sigh.

Loose leaf?  What’s that mean?

College ruled or wide?

What are you talking about?

A notebook?

Yeah.  I have a notebook.

Do you?

Oh you do too?

What kind do you have?

Hm.  I’ve never heard of that kind before.  I have an apple.

So let’s see what happens.

I’ve sat down this morning, coffee and silence, cereal and spoon, with nothing but desire to tell you everything I can about everything of me.

I’m going to put this whole thing out there, and listen for any indication it was heard.

If it falls flat, just barely leaves the ground, or misses its mark altogether, at least I’ll know it’s floating out there somewhere in this spacious cyber-universe.

If however, the whole world hears what I’ve had to say, then I’m quite certain it will be as easily forgotten as it was to read.

Even I have no idea where all of this is going.

But maybe that’s the point? To somehow suggest that we in life have no eternal control of our own direction, and it’s simply one line at a time that we write our lives into history, hoping that in the long run, when all’s said, all’s done, we’ve left behind a legacy, that may or may not be considered worth reading?

Is life really one long run-on sentence? Perhaps.  Probably not.  But that last paragraph certainly was.

This is a moment of honesty.  One with no clear sense of direction.

My thoughts are here, screaming to be heard, because I wonder if anyone really hears anything, anymore.

Here, on this shrinking planet, those of us with broadband, 3 or 4G, WiFi access, and mobile IQ, hear so much noise, I think many have forgotten what beauty really is.

How it looks.  What it feels like.  The way it sounds.

Truth is no matter what I deliver in this entry — even were it to be the long lost answer to man’s search for meaning — it might go viral, then be lost again tomorrow.  Or far sooner.

Lost to a status update on a popular social networking site.  Lost to a ring tone.  Lost in realitly TV.  Lost for ages until someone else discovered it, re-wrote it, and hoped their call for meaning would be heard.

I’ll tell you, I don’t have such an answer.  I barely have the answers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime.

I do however know whithout a doubt, it’s easy to be distracted.  To lose one’s sense of direction.  T0 lose one’s sense of self.

To let go and realize somewhat later, you’re lost and clinging to a buoy in the middle of a darkened ocean, eagerly waiting any indications of light.

So give up?  No point anyway?

Definitely not.

Here is the tip…truly the reason for this rambling.

When we work our way back through the corridors of our personal histories, searching for the meaning in our lives, let the legacy we leave be one of love.

Eventhough we’re easily distracted, contented by the passings-by of pretty pictures and funny one-liners, let the lifelines we hold, the pictures we close our eyes and see, be the one’s that tug at the strings of our hearts.

Let it be love.

Written one line at a time, and tied together at the ends.

Knotted for eternity with the lives we hold most dear, we hold one/eachother together.

If there was ever a time to strengthen our bonds, renew or senses, re-light and truly hold our aprrectiaion for love, it is now. Right now.

And that is the point.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the relationship between earth and water. I have always been fascinated by the concept of which is stronger.

Earth is solid. It is the foundation upon which all is built, holds things together, provides stability. Often considered harsh, stubborn, rough or even unbreakable. Its rocks and mountains are synonymous with strength, its soil the birthplace of life and the resting place of death.

Water is fluidity and motion. Its power is in its force and unpredictability. Sometimes it is the calm, quiet of a warm rain, sometimes the destruction of a tidal rapture. It has many forms, intensities and paces. Its reflective beauty unmatched. Giver of life.

The fact of the matter is they are both equally strong, but cannot reach their full potential without the other. Water carves the amazing canyons into the earth, smooths the rough edges of the rocks, provides the nourishment for all that begins in the warmth and safety of the soil, allowing it to develop into what it was meant to be. Earth provides the structure in which water exists – gives it a home to thrive in and keeps it from losing its place, while still allowing it to rush over its cliffs as spectacular waterfalls or gently flow through its mountains and fields as streams and rivers. Very rarely do you see one without the presence of the other. When one is lacking, the other may exist but it is usually an unbalanced, extreme circumstance, where things get out of control, and possibly even die.

We seek what is absent in our own nature in order to compliment and fulfill our existence.

I love the feel of digging in the dirt, but…

I always dream of water.

Journalism has one foot firmly planted in the future, but has struggled mightily to get the other foot to follow.  An information superhighway threatens to chop off journalism’s lagging leg, but journalists remain.  They’ve adopted new techniques, and adapted to this digital age.  Journalism will thrive in the future, and will feature instant gratification for all users.

The uprising of digital strategy has put publishing groups, newspaper agencies, and magazine companies under a bottom-line, fiscal microscope.  Urged-on by a slow-moving economy, the digital shift has become an essential part of any companies’ future business plans.  The channels by which we receive our news and entertainment is currently in a state of flux, but one constant remains: journalism provides our content.

The news may never happen if there is no one around to witness and report what it is they’ve seen.  As the old adage goes, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?  Most definitely, yes.  The question has more accurately become, how quickly can we deliver news of the fallen tree to everyone world-wide?

We move today at break neck speeds, and often, that isn’t fast enough.  We ride the waves of 3G networks and tune into WiFi signals, all to check in on current events.  Sites like Facebook, SecondLife, and Twitter have changed the connotation of what we consider news, but in a broad sense, everyone posting to those sites is a journalist.  An example of this status update phenomenon, Chad Ochocinco, professional athlete for the NFL, launched the Ochocinco News Network in 2009.  The OCNN reports on the latest happenings around the NFL via Twitter, and boasts the slogan, “If I break it, you might as well believe it.”  The OCNN is powered by Motorola, and also has a Facebook page, which somehow seems to legitimize the OCNN as a real, NFL news outlet.

In 2001, when two towers fell in New York City, the tragic day was captured from the ground by dozens of citizen journalists.  They held their video recorders, and we followed their movements and reactions.  We watched their eye-witness reports as they ducked behind cars, and hid from overpowering clouds of dust and dirt.  When the second tower fell, we were all right there to watch it happen.  I myself still have some eerie memories of the sights, the sounds, the panic and the terror, delivered on that September morning.  Many view that day as the dawning of a new age, a shift in global economic power.  In the journalistic sense, the world was changed forever, because no matter where or when, life-altering news could be happening right then; how will you capture and report it?

Journalists are everywhere.  It’s the scope, accuracy, and depth of field of their reporting that determines our interest in what they have to say.  In the future of this industry, journalism will be even more competitive.  The market’s demand for compelling journalism will determine who stays and who goes.  Those who carry the tools for the trade with them at all times, are ultimately prepared to deliver the news, always.  The industry-wide digital shift means you can no longer be just a photographer or cameraman.  Agencies want someone who can do it all.  When I first began my course work for journalism in 2007, some of the first things I was told was, start a blog, learn HTML, get a Facebook page, and become as adept in all aspects of journalism as possible.  It’s advice I’ve followed and they are skills I hope to hone, as we move into the future of the world.

As print media waits while its digital cousin determines its market share, journalism is simultaneously becoming better, and worse.  Millions of self-proclaimed journalists create some terrible reporting, but also consecrates the best from the bad.  Like a mocha from a favorite coffee shop, the cream always rises to the top; the grounds remain in the bottom of the cup.  But the grounds are an integral part to the entire process.  Without them, there is no flavor.

Journalism isn’t dying.  She isn’t ringing her ink-stained hands with worry about the future.  She is simply changing, maturing, and preparing for uncertainty that is inherently part of reporting the news.  In the city of the future, newsstands may cease to exist.  Books may go completely digital, but this certainty will remain: journalism will always provide the content for the news.

Creation, curved like an egg, opens with
gilded golden wings. They call you

Khepera.

You move close to the earth, eat bits
of old. An amulet allowing ascension

adorning the deceased with spells
written on cool stone: prayers balanced

against a feather. You push the sun across
the sky and motion the moon to do the same.

Your image, carved

on earthen walls, watches my wrapped body
lowered into the sand. There I dissolve

into the womb of your child

and am reborn.

Delving deep
into iron-red rock,
the swell of San Rafael,
Bodies become
canyon,
pebbles,
sand,
dust.

Whispers:
primordial language
of water.
Juniper and sage
spice thin air.

Scent and sound
discordant
coexistence
with a harsh,
gracefully broken land.

Persistent sunlight
grazes a shear
rock face,
ghosts twist
between crevices
and emerge
as ancient art
carved
onto ancient walls.

We open our palms,
touch cool red rock,
delicate skin
exposed and painted
with muddy earth,
blending with sandstone,

and it is sudden,
the understanding of
vulnerability.

One of three ceiling lamps at Union Station.

At the northeast corner of Brodway and Colfax.

Denver -- On 17th, near Market Street.

All I can think of is The NeverEnding Story?

StationLamp2

Mother and child

StationSign

]]> http://www.25hourwatch.com/2010/05/22/sightsitecitedenverwhatifound2shoot/feed/ 1