Sunday Papers: Joanna Macy

"Wander into the past or future and you're deprived of choice."


On the turntable: Robert Mirabal, "Music from a Painted Cave"

July Monsoons

Sitting out on my land, feet kicked up and reading a book. There's a storm coming over from the west, flat and mingling shades of blue, obscuring the mountains of Taos and Los Alamos and the mesa of Bandelier. This is a common sight this month, those heavy dark airships dragging their sodden curtains that sweep the land. What's unique tonight is that it is moving toward another storm crashing like a wave over Santa Fe Baldy and the ski area, a wave dark and billowy and heavy. I sit in the center, and just above me, perfectly centered, is a winking patch of bright blue summer sky. As the two storms collide, the rain begins to fall in fat heavy drops, and from inside the house, the sound of Keith Jarrett moaning as he works though his runs, moaning like the sound of the local ghosts...

On the turntable: Keith Jarrett, "Testament"
On the nighttable: Frederick Barthelme, "Painted Desert"

Sunday Papers: Ethiopian Proverb

"Every time an old person passes away, it's as if a whole library were lost."


On the turntable: Ryan Adams, "Love is Hell"
On the nighttable: Waldman, et al. "Beats at Naropa"

Underplanned Parenthood

I see a lot of evidence these days of a vicious cycle of unparented kids not showing any evidence of having received love. Without love, they will know no compassion. Without compassion, there will be no kindness. And they in turn will underparent their own kids, and things will spiral further.
On the turntable: Oingo Boingo, "Boingo"

Sunday Papers: Michael Chabon

"Every generation loses the messiah it has failed to deserve."
--The Yiddish Policeman's Union

On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "Blues for Allah"
On the nighttable: Jack Barth, "American Quest"

Nog Notes Redux: "New Lint in Old Navels"

Memories are silly. An event rehashed verbally becomes little more than anecdote eventually, the story, molded again and again, pieces added bit by bit like globs of clay, replaces the experience, creating it's own form of art. The experience itself, in the larger scheme of things, becomes minimalized. Each event is an acid test; it either helps support a beforeheld opinion reassuringly, or it does the complete opposite and reverses our taste about something. From here we progress, making future decisions which are tied to that particular event linearally. In its most basic form, each random causal event creates a scenario which is as simple as, yet simultaneously as incredibly significant as, the minor decision as to whether to take the right or left fork in the road. Our perception of reality based on said event will determine our live's outcome. So obviously, our present is invariably decided by interpretation of past events which individually have come to play a part in our future (as it becomes present). Yet, paradoxically, the memory of past events (which created this present moment of reflection), can in turn hinder the progression toward the future. The longing for something lost long ago muddles the decision-making process. When is it that we learn something? It's when an event enters our realm which deviates somewhat from the existing program. But what about the little details? Why is it that we remember certain things in our lives and forget about others? And why is it easy for our friends to remember those events that ourselves cannot? Conscious memory is a funny thing; it acts as the rudder to the ship of our active decision-making, yet it is the subconscious memory which is the tide and the wind. Memory exists where we changed course...

On the turntable: Natalie Merchant, "Leave Your Sleep"
On the nighttable: Edward Abbey, "Resist Much, Obey Little"

Sunday Papers: Thomas Paine

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."


On the turntable: Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Californication"