Hawks' Dominion

Hawks have dominion over mice and the imaginations of men!!

I did a painting for an art class a long time ago...we had to make a big painting..three feet square...and I did two...one was a moth from a National Geographic photo...so big that the wings looked like an aerial shot of roads and rivers and things...and for the second I snagged a pic of Horus, the ancient Egyptian falcon god, in a tomb...and the the painting, the original...had deteriorated and the eye of Horus was gone...shades of the myth!!...and so I did the second painting from this...and "restored" the Eye of Horus...the painting I did would hang on the wall of the apartments I moved about to...it's in the rafters in the garage at home I think now!...these two painting were the only paintings I did for most of my life until I took up art about seven years ago...so I thought on all this after seeing the Cooper's Hawk this morning.

There are Falcons hereabouts, so I hope to get their pic too!

Now, I cant go into everything about the Egyptian god Horus...but the image of Horus sitting on Isis' lap is worth some pondering!!

And I got to thinking about the obelisk in Las Vegas that adorns one of the Egyptian themed hotels...I saw it against the blue desert sky...the very top I mean...one of the reasons I've read the Egyptians revered the falcon was that it flew so high..and I sometimes think the obelisks point to that high sky where the falcons reside...oh, but here...a quote from wikipedia's bit on Cleopatra's Needles...

quote

The Horus, Strong-Bull-Son-of-Khepri,
the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, User-maat-ra, Chosen-of-Ra, the-Golden Horus,
Mighty-in years-and-great-of-victories, the Son of Ra,
Ramesses, Beloved-of-Amun, who came forth from the womb
in order to receive the crowns of Ra,
who created him to be sole lord the Lord of the Two Lands,
User-maat-ra Chosen-of-Ra, the Son of Ra.
Ramesses, Beloved-of-Amun, one serviceable to Ra and granted life like Ra.
The Horus, Strong-Bull-Appearing-in Thebes,
he of the Two La Goddesses,
Enduring-of-kingship-like-Ra-in-heaven, Bodily son of Atum, whom the Mistress of
Heliopolis bore to him, Thutmose,
whom they created in the temple in the beauty of their members, knowing that
he would exercise enduring kingship throughout eternity,
the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Men-kheper-ra, beloved of Atum,
the great god, together with his Enneat,
granted all life, stability, and dominion like Ra for ever.
The Horus, Strong-Bull-Beloved-of-Ra,
the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, User-maat-ra, Chosen-of-Ra,
Ra, created by the gods, who founded the Two Lands, the Son of Ra,
Ramesses, Beloved-of-Amun,
the noble youth, beloved like Aten when the shines on the horizeon,
the Lord of the Two Lands, User-maat-Ra,
Chosen-of-Ra, the Son of Ra,
Ramesses, Beloved-of-Amun, one serviceable to Ra and granted life like Ra.

end quote

I've always liked Egyptian stuff!!

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 30, 2007

Peaceable Kingdom

Well, I'm reading up on Edward Hicks, who did a hundred versions of this painting.

Dominion

It's late...Ferguson is on....want to work up a bit on Dominion....brb....

quote

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

unquote

Not sure yet where to go with this...but lemeget pic of Noah and the Ark...brb...pic from wikipedia...and a good one too!! Painter is Edward Hicks.

Some things to mull over tomorrow...

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 28, 2007

Everest

For fifty thousand dollars I guess one can go...plus transport and gear and all...it's been on several nights...tonight a recap hosted by the Amazing Race host..."it" being a series about climbers struggling up Everest....

It's a great challenge, and an accomplishment...and I dont want to belittle it...but it reminds me of the climb up the cables of Half Dome when they show the line up going to the top...

And the other thing it reminds me of...well...all their mountain sickness and high altitude problems are reminiscent of what really old people go through!! And seriously, I've thought on this...growing old can be thought of as an ascent, rather than a descent...an ascent not unlike climbing Everest!!

Short of breath, missing toes, denial, delirium, etc....

Snagged pic from wikipedia. On the web sites, one can follow along with the expeditions.

Kerouac and Jazz

Nicholas Cage on in movie with Shirley McClain where he's her bodyguard....started to watch it once but couldn't finish it...not sure I'll make it this time!!...sounds a lot like work...

Anyway...the piped in jazz has given way to xmas music...but on thinking on jazz I thought to look up Kerouac's take on jazz....I think there's some influence of Muir's writing in Kerouac's likely via Gary Snyder...the two of them clambered up a peak on the East Side...see Darma Bums...lemegolook...brb...

"so this world will report you well and truly"

Well, he could turn a phrase, and if still about with Steve Allen on piano this kindof thing might fly better in today environs.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Jack-Kerouac-Steve-Allen-On-the-Road-w-Jazz-Piano

Well, I hadn't realized the possiblities of YouTube for poetry...and did a Graves search and happened on some young people doing one of this poems...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLcPYRIGoY

...hard to understand...but I got the poem...

quote

Song : One Hard Look
by Robert Graves

Small gnats that fly
In hot July
And lodge in sleeping ears,
Can rouse therein
A trumpet's din
With Day-of-Judgement fears.

Small mice at night
Can wake more fright
Than lions at midday.
An urchin small
Torments us all
Who tread his prickly way.

A straw will crack
The camel's back,
To die we need but sip,
So little sand
As fills the hand
Can stop a steaming ship.

One smile relieves
A heart that grieves
Though deadly sad it be,
And one hard look
Can close the book
That lovers love to see--

unquote

Pic isn't mine...snagged from wikipedia....a mountain on my "sometime" list!

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 25, 2007

Ring Around the Moon

A Nature story on before work...saw the beginning...and almost the end...but I dont know if the photogs got the clip they pursued..a Tiger in India chasing and catching its prey. That was the whole story...trying to get the "ultimate challenge of evolution" when the two species use all their skills and wits to survive...oh..heck...anyway..it was a good show but I dont know if they got the clip...one, British, I think, world traveling photog...and an Indian who has spent forty years taking pics of Tigers. He has it down...rides an elephant...and has a tripod as tall as the elephant...and when he spots a tiger...he sets up the tripod and sits on it with his camera!!

A ring was around the moon when I came home from work. and tourists talked a bit...and asked me...'What does it mean?"

Now, I'd been thinking today to do up a post on Prophets....and a ring around the moon is an augury of some kind..."The weather is going to change...I think..maybe rain."

But lemegolook and what it does...mean...brb...

quote

When there's a ring around the moon,

Rain of snow is coming soon.

unquote

Well, I hope...

Once we saw a rainbow like shape around the moon...it looked like the colors around the Virgin of Guadalupe...my roommate then...a Catholic of Mexican ancestry, was quite taken with it...asking then, too..."What does it mean?"

The Virgin is an interesting story!

quote

In a single small town, Cholula, 365 churches were built; one for each day of the year to commemorate each saint on his own festivity.

unquote

The context of that is how the Indians started converting to Christianity in mass on seeing and hearing of the Virgin.

And I've studied out Cholula before...lemegetpic...I tried to figure out how to vacation there...

quote

At the time of the arrival of Hernán Cortés Cholula was second only to the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) as the largest city in central Mexico, possibly with a population of up to 100,000 people. In addition to the great temple of Quetzalcoatl and various palaces, the city had 365 temples.

unquote

That's a side by side!! I was thinking on that too...and found a metaphor for it..blaring in my ears, as it were...the music playing now in Last Chance is jazz...and in jazz one musician plays a bit...then another pics up the bit and improvises on it...they do this alone, and together...and all the bits are "side by side" in that they resemble one another..though different...oh, I'll have to work this up!

Cholula has a Cathedral built on top of an ancient pyramid, which is in turn built on several older ones...and to "top" it off, from one view Popocatepetyl can be seen in the distance...that's "side by side"! It's jazz.

The critters are like jazz, how they "sing" to the seasons, each with it's own improvisation.

And it's today a site of pilgrimages...more tourists!!

The pyramids are about time and the calendar and the seasons....

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 24, 2007

To the Wall

quote

to a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.

Thomas Henry Huxley

unquote

That little quote is on the back of one of my bird books, one I specially bought for the scratch board illustrations...the quote is below one of Mirror Lake..and in the scene is an Ouzel.

Now, I didn't know that the many times I looked through this book..that the bird was an Ouzel...now I do...having seen them...and become very fond of them..

Becoming fond of something....sometimes I think that is as important as love...and in some ways a better thing...as you can be fond of a lot of things and people without the drama of love. It's like friendship, something that grows with time.

The tourists "faces" hereabout are "to the wall"...I mean, I'll never know much about each one....and I think only familiarity with a place or person can bring about fondness.

I think that's what Huxley is trying to articulate...and it doesn't just apply to the Natural world...it can be anything...Drew was on...then a Time Life informercial for '70s songs...now, I'm familiar with those...and very fond of them..just the short clips of the songs evokes their feeling....then Feed the Children on...it usually follows Drew...and I'm not familiar with Africa...but the testimonials of those on the show indicate that going there and seeing for themselves the suffering...well, the africa kids faces were no long to the wall for them.

In the corner of the Creek pic is Owl Log...having sat there many times now...well, it's like an old and favorite chair!

In the lens are flaws...chips from the drop on Dana...other photogs will complain...but they dont understand...I'm fond them...and dont find they mar the pic!

Acne informercial on now...well, somethings we become familiar with unwillingly...and hardly fond of!!...time for channel flip!...the Croc hunter has just gathered up some kind of hawk like bird...and a road killed kukabara...

"To the wall.." has a Latin American ring...as it's what's said by revolutionaries...that they'll take their cause 'to the wall'...that is..the firing squad!

Lemego get Goya's famous painting...

I'm familiar with Aldous...Thomas his brother...letmesee...brb...

quote

Huxley was the founder of a very distinguished family of British academics, including his grandsons Aldous Huxley the novelist, Sir Julian Huxley the first Director General of UNESCO and a founder of the World Wide Fund for Nature, and Sir Andrew Huxley the physiologist and Nobel laureate.

inquote

Among many things scientific..he coined the term 'agnostic'..though on what scientific evidence..oh, he'd likely claim some lack...I dont know!!

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 23, 2007

Impresa

quote

The Anchor and Dolphin emblem is called an impresa, a form of pictorial puzzle popular in renaissance Italy. The picture illustrates a motto, in this case a saying of the emperor Augustus that Aldus knew from Suetonius' biography and from the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius: Festina lente, "Make haste slowly." The anchor was symbolic of slowness and the dolphin of speed, an apt representation of the printer's painstaking and relentless style of work.

http://www.makingpages.org/pagemaker/history/aldus.html

unquote

I got to thinking about "impresa"...lemegolook...

quote

Hire a poet.
One of the simplest ways to find a good impresa was to pay someone else to do it.
In 1613, the Earl of Rutland paid Shakespeare 44 gold shillings to compose an impresa.
Ben Jonson wrote speeches for the Rich brothers to use in the presentation of their imprese; he probably composed the imprese, as well. (However, Jonson also wrote a satirical poem about knights who couldn't create their own imprese!)
The writer of this article is quite willing to follow in such illustrious footsteps.

http://www.doomchicken.net/~ursula/sca/imprese/imprese.html

unquote

Gotta wonder what Shakespeare came up with??

That's a good explanation at that site. I have one...borrowed somewhat...a leaping dolphin and the motto from the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea....mobilis n mobili...mobile in a mobile environment.

Well, I started googling images of dolphin anchor...which I've done before...and it's fun as there's a variety of things people are making of them.

End of the March of the Penguins on when I came home..then a tale of a pet hippo in South Africa...now orangutans...

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 22, 2007

Delos

One of the things I've been a bit gone on, since like 95...well...let me tell how I found Delos...

Microsoft Word...or was it Adobe Pagemaker...I forget...the software instruction ...oh yeah...it was Aldus...had the story of Aldus and an emblem..a dolphin and an anchor...and as it happens I was reading a National Geographic tale about an ancient ship wreck along the coast of France in the Mediterranean...or somewhere like that....and the story told how they traced the origin of the wreck's cargo..some of it anyway..marked with a dolphin logo...to the island of Delos...now, I've been gone on Dolphins for a very long time!..and there was a house there called the House of the Dolphins...and I thought that was cool...and then I read some more on Delos..and it's really cool.

It was a place of pilgrimage, among many things, and back then pilgrims were what we call tourists today.

Nowadays tourists cant stay on Delos..they can day trip..and that's it...and even the ancients gave it special status..no one could be born or die there...

I could fill this all out...but just google up Delos...wikipedia has a good entry look...I'm gonna save my stuff for some more posts on Delos...and let me finish up with a quote I found there from the Homeric Hymns..which I've used here before on another subject...

Oh, in the Valley there's births, and deaths...but you cant be buried here!...the ancients removed all the graves from Delos...a side by side curio.

quote

Delos, if you would be willing to be the abode of my son Phoebus Apollo and make him a rich temple --; for no other will touch you, as you will find: and I think you will never be rich in oxen and sheep, nor bear vintage nor yet produce plants abundantly. But if you have the temple of far-shooting Apollo, all men will bring you hecatombs and gather here, and incessant savour of rich sacrifice will always arise, and you will feed those who dwell in you from the hand of strangers; for truly your own soil is not rich.
—Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo

unquote

sheesh...Drew was on..then High Plains Drifter..now Hackman's mowing them down in the Sharon Stone gunfighter contest movie...

"I'm in charge of everything!!" Hackman rants.

Oh, the web has made everything too easy...I had to prowl libraries and bookstores all over for Delos lore...here's where it started...

quote

The famous "Dolphin and Anchor" device of Aldus appeared for only the second time in the second state of the 1502 Dante, and was used subsequently in all his editions. It is the symbol of the ancient proverb "Festina lente" (Hurry up slowly) which Aldus had taken as a motto as early as 1499, and seems to have regularly expounded to his friends.

unquote

Now, that is yet another explanation.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 20, 2007

Restoration

Well, with the preoccupation with the VW Bus restoration...which is 'postponed' (have purchased new desktop PC to keep up with pics and clips!)...and thinking on the Plan last night...I was taken with the sign Raven was sitting on...Cook's Meadow Restoration..it begins...

Open Range on again...the gunfight...then the Green Berets in Afghanistan...roadside bombs and gunfights...I think we just miss the Old West..which the indigenous over there seem to have their own appreciation of!!

Drew on now with improvs...

But, the restoration of the Valley..not over there...here...

I'm content with the way it is...it's a hodgepodge of facilities, each meeting some need over the years...as they run down, or fall down, they'll be replaced, or modified.

I'm a tourist too after all!!

But I thought on what could be done.

Now, the High Camps are just tents..a mess tent..and pit toilets...and a shower for the paying guests. The only way people can reach them is on foot or mule and horse. In the mess tent they're are a few souvenirs and snacks.

The one that used to be by Tenaya Lake is gone. Now, there, there is just day picnicking.

Day picnicking, and that's all for the Valley?? Bring your own food. Pit toilets provided. And that's it? Well, that IS Little Yosemite Valley. Backpackers can spend the night of course...anywhere.

That's too extreme, I would guess, for a Plan.

Tent facilities, like the High Camps? That's White Wolf...which also has car camping facilities.

Can that be the Valley Plan??

Add a grocery store, stable, gas station...with the tents...a bus shuttle service to get about...close it all in the Winter.

Would that work for the Valley??

That's Tuolumne...

Well, what the Valley has now is all the comforts of a small resort town...campsites...tents...rooms...the Awhahnee...Badger Pass...

That's Mammoth!!...just minus condos and such.

With out the brakes put to the early Valley development, it would be like Mammoth...or...dread to think...Tahoe.

Sigh..the Awahanee doesn't need to be in the Valley...or the souvenirs...or theater...or restaurants...or shuttle buses..and all that...all anyone really wants to do here is walkabout and see things...and be with their friends and family in the outdoors.

For creature comforts and entertainments...there's Tahoe.

White Wolf, I dare say, is likely the model...open from Spring to late October...closed in Winter.

Some people of course need some comforts...the elderly, handicapped, very young.

But they dont need dramatic luxuries like the Awahanee...

In a way, I'm too handicapped to see the Valley through the Awahanee experience...I'm poor. I thought on that today...there's places all over the world, and things to do, that I'd like to go to, and experience...but I haven't the cash for all that!!

I thought on this, as I dont want to see the Valley off limits to handicapped folk..either by age or infimity...which more primitive facilities in the Valley would do...Voglelsang is a difficult place to get to!

And the "handicap" of being poor ought not to keep anyone out...which I'm afraid the money making end of the Valley is doing.

The National Parks have a mandate not to allow any private exploitation or development take place with in their boundaries...Hetch Hetchy damn an example of when and where that boundary was breached.

Well, the facilities in the Valley are like the Dam...they make money and are exploiting the Park...within Park boundaries.

Now, the Park has come up with a notion to justify much of it...it is an effort to educate the public about the wilderness...and provide a wilderness experience...not a Tahoe experience...which the private business world has developed...but somekinda science thing.

Well, the Japanese are justifying the Humpback whale hunt (see dancingdolphin widget) as a scientific expedition.

Well, enough rant...oh, one more...hiking up the Valley sides...one shouldn't hear..anything..save the Falls when they're full...and the calls of Hawks and Owls and Wind and such...make that a parameter..and the rest will follow.

Sometime.

Tomorrow, a special and sacred place and how it deals with tourists, now, and two thousand years ago.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 20, 2007

Loop Road

Dancing with the Stars on...haven't seen this in awhile...dont know who's left.

Don't know what to post about either!

Well, a post card pic..from yesterday..this view all cloudy today.

Well, wait, the 66 million wildlife aficionados in yesterday's post did give me pause, and I thought to see how many a year frequent the Valley (3.5 million)...and finding that I found the answer to question asked of me by tourist yesterday...they wanted to know how the Plan was going...well, it's stalled I explained....the Plan was rejected because it didn't articulate exactly how the Merced would be affected by people, and most importantly, how many people. I was pretty close...this from the NP Y. site...

quote

This project was originally intended to address various rehabilitation needs, road surface improvements, and fulfill additional drainage needs. Since then, the most recent Merced Wild and Scenic River-related court decision has directed the National Park Service to prepare a new, valid comprehensive management plan for the river.
In the absence of a user capacity management framework and the river values that such a plan would identify, the full construction planned for this project will be postponed.

unquote

This "Project"...a small part of the Plan...concerns the Loop Road...the roads in the Valley.

Oh, I think I figured out what rip rap is...it's the 'diversion dam'...and it's all over both sides of the Creek...and a lot of the places on the Merced...it diverts the river and creek from eroding their banks...rip rap has the look of an ocean break water...just a jumbled wall of rocks. The rip rap here is so old that the lichen have blended the stones in with everything else.

I did a little eroding my own self, looking one way, and slid off the path edge, taking out a clump...and nearly my knee! There are use paths all over, all along both sides of creek and river...and while not a lot of people use them, or even know of them...enough do that I see them on my walkabouts all the time. The walks are hardly secluded! Though, often enough, they are...

They have once a month an open house meeting, anyone can come. I have a mind to take the evening off from work and go!!

Here's a little list of...doubts...

Tourist buses and parking.

Food service for tourist bus passengers.

Restroom facilities for same.

If all park employees are moved out of Valley...

Employee buses parking.

Food service for employees.

Restroom facilities for same.

Private car parking for same.

And if they put new employee housing in Foresta, El Portal...or somewhere...

Bus parking.

Car parking.

Food service.

Restroom facilities.

The restroom facilities may seem spurious...but I have in the back of my mind the Tiki Temple...which I think is receiving offerings from the outlying porta potties and such.

What I cant help but notice, is that as soon as bus riders arrive, they go to the restroom, then they want to eat. And likewise before they leave.

Just as true I suppose with passenger cars.

Town wise, I think the Valley has almost as many facilities as Mariposa! It's big. And I'm not including the tourists! Watching traffic in Mariposa is 'bout the same as watching traffic in the distance from the Creek.

An eighteen wheeler was parked all day along Chapel Way...it's still there.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 19, 2007

66 Million

In browsing about I found that there are 66 million Americans engaged in wildlife observation and photography and they spend like 36 billion dollars every year.

Planet Earth on with the Snow Leopard footage (they shot film??)...and the mountain sheep of the Himalayas...this is the same predator prey relationship of the mountain sheep and lion on the East Side hereabouts...I have in mind someday to get footage of these my own self!!

Snow Leopards are awesome.

Now someone is kayaking down an Alaskan glacier snow melt stream.

I have no notion of what's been in the news today, or yesterday...was gonna do a post on Nature's defenses...a counter to that famous bit in the song After the Gold Rush..."look at Mother Nature on the run..."...and had a dream of a wind storm...and I think there's been a typhoon in Bangladesh or somewhere...needless to say Nature always has the last word...and can be scary.

In the Creek I haven't found any fish all Spring, Summer and early Fall, but today I saw what I thought was oil bubbling up in a pond (the Creek has dried to point it is a series of gravel beaches and ponds) as there was a little bit of a slick..but the bubbles were finger length trout nudging the surface..I think they'll be okay as this pond is being fed somehow from underground...there's an underground Creek as water is reaching the Merced...the little bit of oil sheen must have come from the work done to remove the footbridge...the little trout dont look happy oaring their fins in the still water.

"Nature isn't sentimental"...comment made in the Planet Earth show....and of course something was soon eaten...and it's not so....I see the 'sentiments' of Nature in the critters all the time. I think what they're trying to say, is that often in Nature a critter has to stand on it's own at birth...unlike say, mama bear and two cubs who, whom, hearabout, have to deal with the unsentimental tourist environs to bears. The cubs (these are the same that visited Last Chance

Food Heaven) hopped into a wob, and couldn't get out until found and let out. This family has been all over all summer in and out of everything, and for the cubs to learn all these ins and outs at an early age can only spell their doom.

Uploaded the Merced trout at Creek's End too...they were big..and mating.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 18, 2007

The Joy of Being Annoyed

The discussion over breakfast was wide ranging...and I caught myself...all of us really...upon reflection...that the discussion had been a litany of things we found annoying!

I tried to think what it was like...and thought of those after the NBA discussions with the likes of Barkley, Magic, Miller...oh if Russel would be there too...his laughter!...and they are all the time carping...

What's it today?...Bonds?...Arod?...have the Warriours won one yet?...the Dolphins?

There's big bucks in being annoyed, we revel in it so!!

Applegate on in some Mafia spoof comedy with Lloyd Bridges...who is funny!...but he's finally made a final exit...and I can't follow it.

They're all annoyed!

But tonight, at Last Chance in the After Hours, it was entirely different...two Gentlewomen appeared and asked so nobly, "Sir, may we have a hot drink...we have our ticket (tickets are given for free drinks)."

And their thanks was flattering and effusive!!...they could speak French too...

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 17, 2007

On

Van Gogh's Starry Night...



Well, another dust up at Last Chance...hot chocolate again...must be a thing to do...come in after hours....snag chocolate...and annoy the old guy....





Man vs Wild on....out in the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains...I've never seen any video of the Atlas Mountains...this a very neat feature of this show...as he gets into the details of places...kinda like the Creek blog...





And I was thinking 'on'...energon...enron....and then I remembered the movie Tron...which has that curious discovery end...and turn about...somewhat like that low key Oz story Disney did where Oz has gone into a kinda winter sleep...an unheralded movie...both Tron and the Oz one...and then there's electron....and these words all end in "on"....and there's "off" of course....





and this is all about electricity...and, finally...I get to Whitman...I sing the body electric....I've never looked closely into Walt Whitman...but I glimpsed a poem he wrote about how at any given moment everything is as it always has been, and always be, and there's really no...what...change...oh...let me see if I can find it...which is going to be tough...





Now he's going to Kenya...cool...





brb...





quote from On the Beach Alone at Night





A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.





Walt Whitman





quote





That's not quite the one I had in mind...but it's close...lemesee if I can get at the notion another way...





The visual spectrum is how we see...and it's just a small part of the elecromagnetic spectrum...but with it we see everything we see with our eyes..and when we look at the stars...we see pretty much what anyone anywhere in the universe would see if they see with our kind of eyes...little pin points of light...lots of them to be sure...but the same vision...





And Whitman has this poem where he plays with this idea, but extends it by saying all times are kinda the same time...as all the events that are happening now will happen again, and have happened before...





What I'm seeing at the Creek has been going on...for millions of years...and unless we really mess things up...will conitinue so...the passage of time is ever present...the plants change with the seasons...the animals make their seasonal passages...and even the years slowly change from one to the next..y'know...mountain ranges come and go..."first there was a mountain then there was no mountain then there was"....Donovan sings something like that...





This is the kinda stuff Whitman dwells on...and I cant dwell too much on Whitman as he just uses way too many general words...like place names and concept names...and...minute particular wasn't in his vocalbulary!...but reading along, which is very easy...he doesn't use obscure words either!...something of note usually pops up...little gems surround by a lot of ore!





It's always been dissappointing to me that so many starting out poets latch on to his style...and the Beats, Kerouac and Ginseberg...dont help...much of it is cotton candy and not much nourishment...





I thought the Body Electric had some bits on how the nervous system is electical..which I think was a discovery contemporay with Whitman's time...he celebrates physicality...Let's get physical...physical...sung better by Olivia...but he's famous for this as he wrote in a stodgy time.





Whitman would have a tough time narrating Man vs Wild!!





During trouble with my teeth I sensed somehow a shooting pain along the nerve from a front tooth to my back tooth...I sensed very cleary the size of the nerve...which was very slim and slender..and the electric charge like pain that fluxed along it.





We are 'electric bodies' and we're 'on'.





And this time is like any other time, somewhat like a starry night sky on this side of the galaxy is the same vision someone on the other side is stargazing at...albeit the stars have moved a bit since their glimmer began it's jouney to our eyes...here...and there.

"and use our brains, like our ancestors did (in Africa) to keep us on top of the food chain"

millions on millions of stars

That's a very low estimate!!

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
Nov. 16, 2007

Treasure Maps

Well, in the Transformers movie there's the pair of glasses with a map in the lenses..in American Treasure there's Ben Franklin's glasses which were a key to the treasure...and I've got to thinking on these things...

In Close Encounter of the Third Kind it was all about an oblique (an ab exercise commercial is on!) message from outer space, and as the tale unfolds the message is a location where the spaceship is going to land.

Now, the powers to be in that film figure this out, and prepare...but peripheral to this is a lot of everyday citizens around the world who get the message too...and it manifests in obsessive behaviour that only a few figure out...they draw or model the postpile mountain in Wyoming..and then locate it for themselves...and a handful make the trek and arrive in time...Dreyfuss not only arrives but gets chosen to go aboard...award I guess for his sticktoitivity.

Oh, but that sound...doo dee do deee dooo...the five notes...semiquaves and all....well...it bears more than a passing resemblance to the sound one makes saying the vowels....a....e....i...o...u...

A clue...

The vowels were given great reverence...in the Bible, and in ancient Egyptian too, they are left out of written words, being too sacred to include...hence the magazine KMT...and JHWH...

letme study out wiki's take on vowels...and Close Encounters....brb...

Well, I got sidetracked...a search of sacred vowels...and then sacred vowels robert graves....I read the White Goddess years and years ago...and apparently scholarship has gone apace until now there's a book of essays about it...it's over forty dollars!...it can wait...but it mentions how the Greeks viewed the vowels (they could animate)..and oh, that will all be for another time!!...

lemgolook at Cls Encntrs...brb...

quote from wiki...

well, my grab and paste didn't grab!! what it describes is when the scientist and the alien talk with their hands to one another...and the five tones are played...well, the Greeks related the vowels to the dactyls...our fingers...and since we make things..animate...with our hands...the notion that vowels animate language has expression!!...I think I made some of that up on my own!!...

Now, (I had to find where I was...)...in Transformers the powers that be have known about Megatron and Cube all along....so while this mystery is in the wire rimmed glasses and leads the good guys to the secret place under Boulder Dam (sorry Herbert)...it falls kinda flat when everyone is already there!!...but that was in CE too...and where else....Independence Day...the aliens' ship and aliens found and stored under Area 51 (and somehow Corso's back engineering notion in his Roswell book got picked up in Transformers...)..so, in these movies, and in all the X Files...the powers are privy to things of import that the everyday citizen can only conspiracy theory about!!

hmmph...I could go on...but here's a bit, by way of apology to Herbert!!...

quote

Herbert Hoover Yosemite

The writer happened to be one of a party of five, along with Hoover, that visited the Yosemite valley in the summer of 1894. It was Hoover’s last vacation, and he expected to spend part of it in recreation. One night in June there was a college reunion, there in the grand old valley, something over thirty different colleges being represented by nearly seventy men and women, and the lovable old Professor Joseph Le Conte, University of Georgia, 1841, was the head of the joyous lock-step parade as it finally wound up the evening’s singing and story telling and instrumental music with a sort of hilarious war dance around the giant bonfire built in an ampitheater [sic] of bowlders [sic] and pines close to the Royal Arches. It chanced that about a half dozen members of the California Glee Club, out on a roughing trip with a burro train, were present for that reunion. They sang gleeful airs with true college zest. And after each favorable impression from California’s representatives some of the strange men from out of the East would call from the flickering circle, “Now, for a Stanford song.” But the Stanford men were truly “a stupid lot,” as a schoolteacher informed them the next evening, when they stopped for an unconventional call at one of the numerous camps and joked for a half hour with the fair gathering, and then, with their identity still unknown, drove away into the darkness with a convincing Stanford yell that echoed from both sides of the mighty walled valley.
That visit to the Yosemite was during the great railroad strike. A telegram came one day informing Hoover that his application for a position with the State geological surveying party had been granted. Train and stage transportation were stopped. It was nearly 100 miles to Stockton, where Hoover could take the boat to San Francisco. He said nothing, but cooked himself some flapjacks, cut off a hunk of bacon, measured out some coffee, took his tin cup, a small fry pan, a pair of blankets and said good-by to his camp companions. It was hot weather in midsummer, and three days of very long marches before him up and down mountain roads. But Hoover went at it without a word and never mentioned it afterward.

http://www.ecommcode.com/hoover/hooveronline/HooverCRB/transcripts/A2_highestsalariedman.html

I think the location is over by Indian Cave. ;)

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 15, 2007

Ancient of Days

Well, the Ancient of Days is another name for God in the Bible...but Daniel kinda trespasses in describing his dream vision insomuch God's appearance isn't supposed to be accessible to our senses. Jewish art, like Islamic, has a prohibition against depicting God.

God's appearance turned Moses' beard white.

Anyway, about the Cube in Transformers...it's called the Allspark...and "sparks" from it make inanimate machines become Transformers...and Transformers' "spark" when they die returns to it.

And for some reason the General Electric headquarter has a stylized William Blake Ancient of Days above it's doorway (I'll get Blake's for this post's pic).

Oh, and the Transformers live by consuming a substance called "energon"...which of course reminded me of "Enron"...and wouldn't you know, they have a cube like logo in the patio to their headquarters entryway!!

And another "side by side" are those eyeglasses in Transformers...they held a map to where the Cube was...there were eyeglasses in American Treasure...Ben Franklin's...and they were part of the "mapping" riddle to the treasure...which was Egyptian golden stuff.

I have somewhere to go with this maybe!!...for tomorrow..

CSI New York on..."find something there?"...

Story of somali kids today...UNICEF allied with World Vision....I just found a UNICEF letter in my junk mail stack...they've sent me a real nickle...and the usual plea...anyone helping has my prayers.

Then that giggly VISA add in the Toy Store...that instrumental circus song is cool.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 14, 2007

Chaldeans

Watched Transformers movie at Flat over veggie lazagnia and cheesy bread...

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."-- Transformers

They're autobots, and they each have a name (introduced to me through Glen Aulin Megatron Blond Bear tales!!)...and they're at war with one another, and the good ones ally themselves with us, a lower level species!, and have become our protectors....at the end they put out a call to their fellow...planetbots?...that Earth is a new home....

Well. this was all an odd thing to see while considering a verse from Daniel I read last night...lemegogetthat...

quote

19: And the king communed with them; and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they before the king.

20: And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.

unquote

That caught my attention, and too while I watched in the movie the autobots introduce themselves and their attributes...I was reminded of this nameing in Daniel...the signifigance of which I dont follow...

quote

6: Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah:

7: Unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names: for he gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar; and to Hananiah, of Shadrach; and to Mishael, of Meshach; and to Azariah, of Abed-nego.

unquote

I mentioned before that the ancient gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, have taken up residence in modern comic books stories...and these comic book movies follow old storytelling formulas...which work very well on one's emotions...the audience included toddlers and oldsters...all in rapt attention...the special effects are spectacular!!

And there's this bit of how the Babylonian King selects, and indicates a reputation the ancient Israeli's had, not unlike today's!!

quote

1: In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it.

2: And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god. 3: And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes; 4: Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.

unquote

Now, I've had to figure out who the Chaldeans are!!...

quote

Chaldea proper was the vast plain in the south formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending to about four hundred miles along the course of these rivers, and about a hundred miles in average width. In the late Assyrian Empire, Babylonian ceased to be spoken, and Aramaic took its place. One form of this widespread language is used in Daniel and Ezra. When the Chaldean empire was absorbed into the Achaemenid, the name Chaldean lost its meaning as the name of a race of men, and came to be applied to a class. The Persians found the Chaldeans masters of reading and writing, and especially versed in all forms of incantation, in sorcery, witchcraft, and the magical arts.[citation needed] Thus, in Greek, "Chaldean" came to acquire the meaning of "astrologer" (e.g. in Strabo). In this sense it is also used in the Book of Daniel (Dan. 1:4, 2:2ff.).

unquote

Those are wikipedia quotes...but they in turn were taken from the Jewish Encyclopedia...

And what it explains is the "Chaldeans" became a synonym for "scientists"...though back then they dabbled in the supernatural...well...they still do...Newton and his alchemy studies...

The historical Chaldeans were the Reed People of Iraq who recently went through great woe when Saddam diverted the river from the delta...that's interesting...as the ancient Egyptians were a 'reed' people too to start...all that history swallowed by the Nile delta...

Are the Transformers "Chaldeans" in the sense of "scientists"...curiously this story begins with a tale of a ship at the north pole...or south...which bears a resemblance to the movies American Treasure...which I think I have in a previous post....the second in this series will come out during the Holidays...and what's that "cube" about!!??

Haven't I seen all this in Alias?...maybe Sydney's on...Chuck Norris exercising dont do it...brb...(Christie's okay...)

The Hoover Dam bit has a CT link..at least it's one my wild woollies...as Herbert Hoover I think made off with treasure from the Fall of Peking...maybe even something in the Library which was torched...and he's about something with gold in Australia...and is just generally one of the more mysterious Presidents...so a tip of the hat to the movie scripters for snagging him into it all!!

For a pic here I'll see if I can find Ezekiels chariot...well, I got that pic from an elaborate, as in intellectual, religious blog....and it's a Sumerian seal of some sort that I've often seen...but...but what were the ancients "seeing"...and here's Daniel again with his transfor...er...beasts!!

quote

1: In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.
2: Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
3: And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
4: The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.
5: And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.
6: After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.
7: After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
8: I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
9: I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.
10: A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
11: I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.
12: As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.
13: I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
14: And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

unquote

The UFO folk of course make much of all this...and I'll try to make something of the Ancient of Days tomorrow...

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 13, 2007

Trustworthy

Well, the Episodes continue at Last Chance in somewhat disjointed fashions...there was the Chocolate Incident...and it's sequences...and the French Easel incident...and it's sequences...and now there's the Bottle of Bordeaux incident..and it's sequences...the three aren't connected..except in this regard..they all revolve around petty theft and how to respond to it...letme go through the Lost Gear episode...and its sequences...and make a stab at unraveling what to do in these occurrences...

Billy Crystal and the Mark Twain Award is on PBS...this is funny...maaarvelous...

I lost my gear by the Creek, hunted for it in the night, and hoped against hope it would be turned it...and it was!! Now, in Japan, it is a famous thing that the Japanese turn in all lost items...they are very trustworthy...and there I found the title word for this post...trustworthy.

Now, the dust up with the Chocolate was a concern less about the Chocolate and more about the Cyber Bullying....and I really dont know how we can trust that our selves wont be miss represented on the Web...there's those photo shopped Hollywood Stars after all!!

The French Easel and the Canvases didn't walk off by themselves from the Alcove...and it would have taken more than two arms to carry...and I must say of the lot it is the most troubling, and it's made me suspicious, where before I trusted that my things would be okay, even with the parade of roomies...now I find myself throwing the deadbolt...and while I have reported the loss to three levels of security....there's hasn't been any assurance that it wont reoccur...the stuff is just gone and I've shrugged it off and ordered replacement. Kinda like Nixon said, It can happen anytime and I dont dwell on it.

And now the latest, I snagged a shoplifter...for a moment was a debate and dilemma, do I ignore what I'm seeing, or report it. Sometimes the circumstances are such in a crowded room that these things can't be pursued..and they're petty after all...and they go unreported...but the circumstances of this one was such that it was easy to report, and that choice was made.

And the reporting is dreary, and one really doesn't want to see trouble befall someone...and it's a Security task, and the everyday citizen leaves it to Security...and there's something wrong in that....citizens expect Security to do things they wont do themselves....things they even disdain to do as they think it is uncool...or are afraid to do.

I have no patience with those who think it's cool to look the other way...

And those who are afraid I respect...as like in the crowded room there are good reasons to be afraid.

And those who make a kinda judgement of the merits of the whole thing I respect too...I watched Cops carefully this afternoon..and they do that...sometimes some conversation is all that's needed.

This Bordeaux incident however, went through all three levels in an eye blink...which will give me pause in future snaggings!! But apparently somewhere a conversation has untangled things...and things will go apace, except I seem to have tagged myself as 'uncool'...well, so be it...it was stitch in the fabric of Trust which is in bad need of repair...

Dirty Jobs was on this afternoon...about the Grand Tiki Temple in San Francisco..and the changing out of a lift pump...now I know what that is...and now what the Tiki Temple hereabouts is for...it's a big sump pump and sucks up the plop and sends it to the next level.

Justice can be blind in respect to being fair...but it can't be stupid with regard to what is fair and reasonable. In Saudi Arabia they chop off hands for theft. I suspect a lot of observations go unreported there.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 12, 2007

Eleven Eleven Eleven

Feed the Children on when I came home..then...The Book of Daniel, the Last Battle for Planet Earth...sheesh...I just read the passage in Matthew about false prophets and such last night...maybe this silliness is what it refers too!

Daniel is an interesting book, however, which I haven't read that closely...it seems to set out a stratagem which ancient Israel could use to survive being surrounded by hostile neighbors.

In a discussion I tried to get a grasp of how just wide spread monotheism was in the Middle East at that time in history...I've come to think that Israel commanded a much larger territory...or had like thinking neighbors...than the general impression of a little country surrounded by pagans and idolaters..which would explain the intensity of the latter rebellions against Rome...but I dont know.

..both these shows are angling for money...I have no idea what country the African children are in, or why no Africans are pitching the story...and I have no idea why the UN, which does yeoman work helping children all over the world, is lambasted as evil incarnate in the Daniel story...I dont know what I'm watching now...something else anyway...

Now, it's Veterans Day and I was thinking of Robert Graves and the War to End Wars...and it's the title of his book, Goodbye to All That, that I've been meaning to source...lemesee if I can find it...brb...well...hooey...I thought to find it in the old Greek play Agamemnon...a Herald appears who tells of retrun from Troy, and in the play I read once he says 'I've said goodby to all that' or some such thing with reference to soldiering...but it's somewhere else...or a different translation...or a different character!!...I should have jotted notes down of everything!...

But Grave's wrote a fine personal biography...but certainly not a definitive tale of the WW1...and as for that tale, here's a quote from the play...

quote

For Ares, lord of strife,

Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold,

War's money-changer, giving dust for gold,

Sends back, to hearts that held them dear,

Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,

Light to the band, but heavy to the soul;

Yea, fills the light urn full

With what survived the flame-

Death's dusty measure of a hero's frame!

Alas! one cries, and yet alas again!

Our chief is gone, the hero of the spear,

And hath not left his peer!

Ah woe! another moans-my spouse is slain,

The death of honour, rolled in dust and blood,

Slain for a woman's sin, a false wife's shame!

Such muttered words of bitter mood

Rise against those who went forth to reclaim;

Yea, jealous wrath creeps on against th' Atreides' name.

And others, far beneath the Ilian wall,

Sleep their last sleep-the goodly chiefs and tall,

Couched in the foeman's land, whereon they gave

Their breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave.

unquote

The Greeks could really write, and this was written in 400 BC or so...lemesee when Daniel was written...brb

605-562 BC

...and the Fall of Troy...brb...

Twelfth or Eleventh Century BC....

The ancient Mediterranean and Middle East..oh, the complexity and richness of these cultures....their size and scope...has been kinda shrunk.

Oh, the news has it a hiker perished on Cathedral...hypothermia likely.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 11, 2007

Living in the Present

Well, Robert Burns had it that the animals, at least his wee mousey, live in the present, and hence haven't our concern for the future, or dwell on memories of the past.

Dwelling is our favorite past time...which I'll get to...

But those squirrels that can remember where three thousand acorns are buried may indicate something else is going on inside those little heads.

Does size, of brains, matter? In Men in Black it has that clever ending about size...and the thought that size doesn't matter.

It's been pretty much accepted that our physical form is evolved, or derived, or made the same way, or something...that animals are...but we've always drawn a line when it comes to awareness and intelligence...animals have intelligent instinct, but dont really feel, has been the prevalent attitude. I had my doubts cleaning fish...

But it's being found that animals emotions and feeling are very close to ours on the evolutionary path, which makes sense...why the similarity would stop with just physical form doesn't make a bit of sense.

And do the animals live "in the present"...the eternal 'now'? Often I think we would do that if we could...forget the past, and not worry about tomorrow...which I think is what that saying...carpe diem...seize the day..is about.

At the very least, the animals have a high regard for the changing seasons...each day of their activities is in some way linked to anticipating the changes.

The seasons are something we've forgotten, except as an excuse for a variety of holidays!

I have to think on this some more...but as to our favorite past time...lemgosee if I can find the quote from the Homeric Hymns and a contest between...who was it..??...brb...

quote

Hesiod, then, began:`Homer, son of Meles, inspired with wisdom from heaven, come,tell me first what is best for mortal man?'

HOMER: `For men on earth 'tis best never to be born at all; or being born, to pass through the gates of Hades with all speed.'

Hesiod then asked again:`Come, tell me now this also, godlike Homer: what think you in your heart is most delightsome to men?'

Homer answered:`When mirth reigns throughout the town, and feasters about the house, sitting in order, listen to a minstrel; when the tablesbeside them are laden with bread and meat, and a wine-bearerdraws sweet drink from the mixing-bowl and fills the cups: this I think in my heart to be most delightsome.'

unquote

There's this contest between Homer and Hesiod...

Are We Being Served....now Dr. Who...caught the end of Cool Hand Luke when I came home...seen the Dr. Who...

Read about the fuzzy comet...and the oil slick.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Nov. 10, 2007