summer in progress

if only I had known about Audio Flux when the semester began, it would've been great to challenge students to meet the circuit 7 criteria for part of our class. ah well.

my students did some great work anyway. here are a couple of their final projects: 

Social Upkeep 

Everything Breaks (episode 1 and episode 2) 

I hear that circuit 8 of Audio Flux is coming soon, at least, so maybe I can work it into something for English Composition (our first-year writing class) this fall. in my one 10.35am section I want to focus on listening and understanding and responding thoughtfully. I am not yet sure how, exactly, but hopefully the students will be open to it and cooperative with each other. part of me is skeptical about building real community within the deeply trenched constraints and stretched-out shallowness of classrooms. Dead Poets Societies are not and never have been real, right? but more of me is gonna try anyway. it is worth trying, no matter how slowly and incompletely each little classroom community seems to develop. 

my very intermittent course prep thoughts are mixed in among many, many other plans and ideas and projects and to-do lists. that is what summer is, usually-- a big mishmash of ambition and dreaming and doing stuff and lounging about.

I finished reading (and lazily annotating) John Durham Peters' The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media some several ages ago now. I keep meaning to send my marginalia-ed copy to friend Chris sometime. we'll see if I get around to it.

this week, I'm getting around to posting all the neat quotes and concepts from all the dogeared pages. they are a little grandiose and navel-gazey at times, but maybe that is okay given that all our navels are made out of the same dusty star crumbs anyway. 

as I compile and remix these quotes a little bit here, I'm thinking a lot about place. it's been 6 full years and a bit since we moved to Arizona. a new record for longest-time-in-one-area. and while I never really wanted to settle down much there is something nice about being known and being somewhat settled. 

still, we'll see how much longer we last in this scrubby desert land. I can only be in one place at once, physically. and there are so many places! media can bridge them somewhat (and times also, a little). but old postcards from California aren't the same as actual California. 

"We make meanings, but do not so in media of our own making; our bodies are embedded in climate history, fire regimes, the spin of the earth, north and south, and relations with plants, artifacts, and organisms of all kinds, especially each other. Whatever nonverbal communication might be, it is certainly richer than our bodies' hints and gestures, rich though they are" (p. 380)

"Real meaning is not fragile: it is exuberantly abundant, overwhelmingly so" (p. 379)

"Nature has meaning, but not for us" (p. 379)

"But the human condition is recursive; it is a conditional condition: our actions change the conditions they act in, especially since they change us; we speak and act, and as we do we change the conditions in which we speak and act" (p. 51) 

"Communication is deeper and older than language" (p. 133) 

(that bit reminded me of this little post by Ian Leslie, which I usually ask all of my students to read in any writing or communication class I'm teaching. the communicative force field around us all has an elemental nature, I suppose.) 

"The stars were both divine and cozy" (p. 386) 

"This is what the universe has yielded: another being in your same form, improbable and precious, with whom you may be able to contribute to the ongoing history of life. Love and beauty are the meaning of the universe, and such meaning is not a human fiat imposed on raw and unfeeling matter by the effort of our will, but rather the product of cosmic history" (p. 385) 

"Perhaps the past cannot be tapped in its full immediacy because the present is not fully immediate. There are vast patches of unobserved magnification, for different organs of sense, for minds quicker or slower than ours. Even for the most acute observer, descriptions might be incomplete, not only because of limited tools but because reality is lacking. Just as we often do not know what we mean when we speak, so the universe might not always be so sure of itself. The cosmos is structurally incomplete, as gap-ridden as its files. Such wonderful conditions these are! The universe generously accommodates our every new act, word, or thought. There is still plenty to do. It is open for new events; it is a container with a gracious void. A growing universe is a (retroactively) incomplete one." (p. 354)

"A phonograph record, tape, or compact disc does not really hold sound: sound exists only as pressure in time and space. Acoustic storage media hold recipes that, with the right equipment, can produce more or less the same sounds over and over, but they don't hold sounds the way a cave wall or canvas can hold an image. Everything that happens in time has to be started over and over in real time. The sound does not last, the word flies away, the vibration dissipates. The vinyl record can endure, but the music it plays on a stereo does not." (p. 311)

"All complex societies have media inasmuch as they use materials to manage time, space, and power. Kittler's point, that culture was always already a procedure of data processing, follows confidently in Innis's path. Kittler's word was Kultur, a term that can mean both "culture" and "civilization"-- and, never shy about grand claims, he certainly meant to include both." (p. 20) 

"For [Norbert Elias], the civilizing process involved three fronts in need of taming: pressures inside people, pressures between people, and pressures between people and nonpeople" (p.159)

"There is an old clash between the ethic of detachment, which calms the soul so well, and the ethic of commitment, which calls us to upsetting action." (p. 384) 

"Death can feel completely normal, dull, and expected, as blank as boredom, and also unbearably bitter and impossible, as hard as thoughts of falling. Death is a great revealer of infrastructures, and, like them, it partakes of the habit of coming out of hiding traumatically." (p. 383) 

"... but this blessed earth will live on, and the clouds and sun will continue to radiate for a season, and the beauty that pulses in our senses will continue to pulse to other senses or just to itself, and that will be enough. Knowing that this beauty will persist gives some comfort. When we go, natality might well bring something new forth. There might be long periods of anoxic oceans and arid wastelands, but something will happen and eventually wildflowers might sprout in the ash we left behind." (p. 387)

 

I will blog more this summer. so much has happened already and classes haven't even been over for a full month yet.

poolside

sometimes I bike to the pool at our community center. it's one mile away, down the road and around the corner. 

are all the HOA fees (that I barely remembered to pay on time for this quarter) worth it for this lovely nearby pool?

hm... maybe. 

the sunshine is worth everything. and swimming a bit is a nice reward of sorts for a two-mile bike ride. 

usually I bring a book. today it was podcasts instead. 

 

not all samenesses are boring

for memories to work, there has to be some sameness. were nothing ever at all related or connected or similar to anything else, I'm not sure how anything would work.

so as much as I love and crave novelty, and wander off after it for its own sake when I get a chance, the novel will never mean anything much unless it has mundanity underneath it.

mundanity itself isn't all one flat texture, either. there are neat little bumps in it to catch you when you think you aren't paying attention.

I'm thinking of moments where I notice a girl across from me on the bus putting on lip balm. I do that.

when "happy Wednesday" comes out of someone else's mouth and I smile inordinately much to hear it.

or recognizing songs on the radio, recognizing them so deep they transport you across decades.

or when the sides of buildings you've driven past at least thirteen dozen times suddenly stand out in different light or different shadow, even though they are the same stone silhouette as ever.

it could be the juxtaposition that saves these samenesses from being dull. a mix of this and that, here and there, now and then-ness. you and me-ness.

yesterday I read this article, one I came across via the tumblr of Emily Horne, one half of the duo who used to write this webcomic. she was quoting from an article about beached whales by one Rebecca Griggs.

now I am quoting from a completely different section of that article, which I read in small sections inbetween my other reading/writing/thinking work. this sentence was near the end of Griggs' beautiful/sad piece, and it wanted to be in this week's blogpost.

"I put one hand briefly on the skin of the whale and felt its distant heartbeat, an electrical throbbing like a refrigerator. Life on that scale – mammalian life on that scale – so unfamiliar and familiar simultaneously. Oh, the alien whale. The world-bound whale. A net of shadows spread out across the ribby sand."

a string of well-spent days

some things are beautiful. and some things aren't. which is which really depends on where and how and when one looks at them. and who the one is.

friend Sherri today mentioned the existence of wooden bow ties. for the most part, I find them pretty ridiculous-looking. but maybe--somewhere in all the surprisingly extensive mass of so much crafted hipster neckwear--there are a few that look kind of lovely. like maybe this one.

depending on when and where and who you are, you may have seen the state of Maine. maybe through smudgy car windows. maybe from the slopes of mountains or ocean shores or city intersections.

I went there last week for the first time and saw it from all these points.

it is more than kind of lovely this time of year. I dare you to disagree.

friend Sam and I hiked a bunch. first, three (and a half ish?) trails in Acadia National Park. the Great Head Trail out around one of the park's peninsulas, then the way-too-crowded Beehive Trail, some of the Bowl Trail to skirt around a shiny inland lake, and most of the Gorham Mountain Trail. it was the most gorgeous October day. why did we have to quit hiking?

well, that afternoon we had to meet Eric in Bar Harbor. he spent the day climbing a bunch of ocean cliffs. and right after that we had to find Stephen King's house and eat lobster and drive north.

but I want to go back someday. let's pause fall-time, and life, for longer than a two-day break. I could spend way more time breathing in the ocean and blue and green and moss and forest.

after Acadia, we went up to Baxter State Park. we camped outside a town called Millinocket. where the highways are haunted.  

we hiked some more. clambering over rocks, trying to avoid the mud.

another gorgeous October day of course, drifting clouds, gentle sun.

it was nothing less than magical. the wind was wild. the world was wrapped up in colors, streaked with brilliance.

my shoes got muddy, my arms and legs collected some scratches, and all my muscles are still a tiny bit sore.

all this awesome hiking in Maine was sandwiched with nigh-insufferable amounts of driving and driving and driving. along our way, we stopped to visit genius brother John and his family. we took a moment to see Walden Pond in Massachussetts, where I stole a few acorns. nearer to home we veered off to see Kirtland, Ohio.

many miles covered, beauties appreciated, and memories made. 

twentynine: penultimate

noticing more grey hairs.

more stray longings.

more could-be what-if alternate universes.

not noticing enough of everything else, it feels like.

the grey hairs are real. I'm not sure if these other spectres are or not.

I am also craving beaches.

{ not a beach, just a sand dune }

{ also not really a beach. a lake and pier } 

{ maybe there are beaches somewhere down there? }

{ a real beach. California, 2009. }

{ also a real beach. Rhode Island, 2013. } 

beaches are my own personal metaphor for escapism. I blog about the idea of them off and on, here and there. I don't blog as often about real beaches. real beaches are as rare as.

ends-of-semesters always come with dreams about living lazily on a beach. silly dreams, but they keep me company while I stress about writing projects. 

imprinted impermanently

last weekend we drove out into a small slice of nowhere (not really--no place can ever really count as nowhere, can it?) to set up a tent and sleep in the sand. the night was suffocatingly blustery, but we did survive somehow. the next day came to life under lovely mottled clouds, traced all around by not-so-gentle sparkling breezes. the sand was smooth as sand almost always is, and unusually wet for West Texas. I practiced my German a bit, writing out a few easy phrases like "hallo, wie geht's?" and "ich liebe dich" in the surface. friend Melanie and I also built some sand castles.

(thanks to Melanie for the pictures.)

this was one of the most relaxing things I've done all year, I think. should I admit I'm almost tempted to acquire a sandbox for my backyard, just so I can go out and play in it when reading Plato and van Eemeren becomes insufferable?

even while we mounded all this soft, sandy construction material into walls and towers and keeps, and even while we dug moats and trenches and arches around and between and among them all, the wind was already caressing our creations away. if it had been a beach, we'd be surrendering our land to the ocean. these things are not meant to last.

in that spirit, I'll end by telling you that the other day this conglomerate tumblr blog of quotes and such quoted this excerpt/article/musing by this guy named Alan Lightman, and here I am, requoting it.

"I don’t know why we long so for permanence, why the fleeting nature of things so disturbs. With futility, we cling to the old wallet long after it has fallen apart. We visit and revisit the old neighborhood where we grew up, searching for the remembered grove of trees and the little fence. We clutch our old photographs. In our churches and synagogues and mosques, we pray to the everlasting and eternal. Yet, in every nook and cranny, nature screams at the top of her lungs that nothing lasts, that it is all passing away. All that we see around us, including our own bodies, is shifting and evaporating and one day will be gone."

maybe try harder to embrace the temporality? maybe...?

some things i brought home

more plane tickets. more airports. more dreaming and flying, eavesdropping and people watching. I can't get enough. what now? how long will I have to wait for my next fix?

my ten days unplugged from the mainland were lovely. Hawaii treated us pretty well; sparing a few scrapes from the lava rock and a few hours of scorching sun, every moment was like a wonderful dream. snorkeling, kayaking, swimming, hiking, shopping, dancing, playing in the sand. it was so good.

I learned all about Captain James Cook, and that the Hawaiian alphabet only has 12 letters, and the names of several tropical flowers. I have a magnificent sunburn. it is currently peeling itself away into what will hopefully remain an alright-looking tan.

this is the cute ukulele I picked up for my cute nephew, who with any luck at all will turn into just the same sort of musical genius his mother is. he will be a born entertainer just as soon as he figures out how to pluck out Mary Had a Little Lamb, right?

this is the sundress I decided I loved. I also acquired a pair of flip flops, a neat pattern of henna across my ankle, and a handful of coral and shells. there is a lot of sand in my suitcase. this beats melted chocolate. still, all the memories are fading already. I find myself sighing anxiously, wishing and longing for more of this beautiful thing called travel.

at least I have lots of photographs. the rest of them, including my extra few days on Oahu, can be seen over here.

aerial sunsets

have I mentioned how much I love airports?

this year, I have already been lucky enough to wander around in five different airports: Calgary, Seattle, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City. the cool, open height of these places just sucks me in. I don't even care what cheap nonsense they're selling behind those garish neon signfronts. It's the people, all of them preoccupied with luggage and being on time and getting to the right place... do they notice the smooth consistency of the buzz in the air? do they all feel the same beautiful restlessness, the layers upon layers of delicate hope and excitement?

the only thing better than airports is the takeoff. the only thing better than that is a rollercoaster.

for the rest of the flight I doodle and read and eavesdrop. little shards of different conversations collect in my mind.

on tuesday, as the sunset ran away behind us, the flight attendants pointed out mount rainier, just off to the left, rising above the rumpled stratus like a king crowned with tufts of golden-white ephemeral glory. it was gorgeous.

airports and flying are becoming as iconic as beaches have been for me in the past. there is a placeless-ness about them--an unspecified inbetween-ness. like the edges of things that hide such magic in all the fairy tales, these are spots where anything can happen. sure, your ticket is stamped and finalized, your seat is reserved and your baggage checked, but there is such possibility.

so now all I need is to find a nice airport on a beach, with any luck connected to a few more airports on beaches. wouldn't that be perfect?

slippery

the Olympic peninsula has become a semi-famous place lately. who would've thought that a small out-of-the-way logging town with a name like a piece of cutlery would get so much attention because of some vampire love story? but seriously, it has.

but that's not why we went to the Olympic peninsula this weekend. we went because my dad is a beach-combing nut. and we didn't make it to Forks. we camped just north of Queets in a little nook of rainforest called Kalaloch. don't they have just cool names for places in this part of the world?

we spent hours and hours walking along beaches. endless beaches covered with what all the little informative plaques call the bones of the rainforest: massive bleached tree trunks piled and twisted and tangled into a death trap of soggy, slippery wood. I almost died three times.
okay, I didn't quite almost die, but there was a lot of falling down. the drift logs can be dangerous, when the tide is high and crashing. but even when it's peaceful and sunny and the shoreline is yards and yards off, there are always the dramatic signs nailed to the trees announcing that 'Drift Logs Kill!!' so you better watch out.

Friday, when we'd finished setting up camp and eating a very late dinner, we walked down to the edge of the continent and watched the waves come out of the darkness with that low and endless growl of theirs. in the shadows, it was deeply frightening. that rushing and pounding of so much water--so much water that it could twirl the whole rainforest into splinters without so much as a thought. the sound of it more than the dampness of it was chilling. and all the large black shapes in the distance, looking so much like bears or whales or monsters... even though I knew they were just dead trees, I found myself watching them as we approached, waiting nervously for them to move. but they never did.

the next day we spent six hours hiking south along the coast, stopping to throw pebbles into the surf or to dig old rope out of the driftwood and rocks. we found a lot of rope.
and in the daytime, with the rare sun burning through all the mist and fog, the ocean isn't scary at all. it's quite playful, really, rippling up and down against the beach, tossing foam into little blobs, and spouting water up into the air as if life is all a game.

we all came home with just the slightest trace of sunburn. having been, in February, to a place where it rains more than three hundred days out of the year, that's kind of funny.

good tidings

i invented a soup the other night. broth, carrots, creamed corn, chicken, an onion. some rice. but i don't know what to call it. chicken/rice chowder? chicken/vegetable mush? titling things is always hard for me. i either give things completely random titles or completely boring titles. maybe someday i'll get the hang of it.

remember that beach? the sunny one in your dreams, with the unending supply of cold lemonade and the softest sand in the world?

the beaches in washington are not like that. they're cold. rocky. full of mist, crowded with trees that are pine trees, not palm trees.

but they are beaches, just the same. the same magic of land meeting ocean. a horizon troubled by nothing but waves. gorgeous.

maybe it's utterly unrealistic to say i'm running away to live there. silly. meaningless. i can at least try it out for one night, can't i? i'll be sure to bring warm socks. i know it's only just february and the rainforests up here are not the tropical kind. i'll be fine.

i'll try and take lots of pictures too.