Baskets

05Jan12

I’ve attached two heavy metal baskets to my bike again. I used to have them on there years ago. Why did I have them? I was carrying stuff. What stuff? Schoolwork, I guess. Teacher stuff. Why did I take them off? We moved into this house 40 steps up from the street and I have to carry my bike over my shoulder every time I ride home. The baskets were too heavy. So why won’t they be too heavy now? Good point. Let me think about…Why did you re-install them now?! Hold on, let me thin…Do you think you’re stronger? Now wait just a…Aren’t you the guy who had the knee surgery, twice?!! Look, if you’re not gonna let me…What kind of imbecile…What did you call…thinks he can…Do you want a piece of…defeat hist…POW BAM BOOM.

The idea was I would be able to shop for groceries more by bike. So far, it has worked. We shall see.

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Articles of Gratitude

03Jan12

Moms have it tough. Take my mom. No, really, take my mom (Just kidding Mom!). She still tries to give me clothes but I have some kind of ancient block against them. Ever since I was a boy, I’d pull the shirt out of the bag, hold it up and make some sarcastic comment. “This will be great next time I’m rollerblading at Pismo Beach.” Or, “This is good because my ship is leaving soon and I have nothing to wear on the voyage.” Or, “Thank god you got this. I just discovered a time portal and wanted to head back to 7th grade without being detected.”

It’s obnoxious, I know, but I can’t help it. This Christmas was no different. I opened the dark blue bag, held up the clothes, made comments, and later I returned the clothes, happy to buy some pants for school. A funny thing happened as I was leaving the store, though. I stopped to flip through the shirts and found myself admiring a nice blue plaid number. It was casual and easy on the eyes. ‘Nice shirt,’ I thought. Then it hit me. It was one of the articles of clothing I had just returned.

 

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Surfing the Outer Rectangle

03Jan12

“It is she who explains that picture taking is no innocent act–that it is a dangerously subtle way we drive our souls into extinction. If this is not so why is it that the photographers always manage to arrive just when the tribe is dying out, just when the traditional practices lose power, just when the people are blinded by sorrow.” – bell hooks

For as long as I can remember I have heard that many cultures consider cameras to be soul stealing devices, but I filed away this information long ago with such stories as the one of the native who stabbed the Spanish soldier’s horse, thinking solider and horse all one beast, and watched in amazement as the man rose and slayed him. However, I have been revisiting the morality of photography, as well as simply its purpose, as I emerge from another holiday season full of digital image capturing devices, as well as wading through the digital archives of the year past.

2011 ended with a project which is fast approaching becoming an official end of year ritual in our family: the great rounding up of the year’s best pictures, to create a bound, hard-cover photo book (through an online service at no small cost) to have and to hold. This project, as with the vast majority of projects which involve the whole family, is midwifed through tireless labor by Amy, often with the help of Maya. (Need a music mix? I’m your man. Otherwise…)

After my usual initial scoffing, I must say I really like this sorting through the digital archives and making something of them. Otherwise, where do those pictures go? What do they do? I don’t suppose they rot, but I’ve heard files can become corrupt. Is that any different? It seems almost wholesome to take these thousand stolen souls and march them back through the reality machine so they become tangible and textual again.

I thought I was here to talk about soul stealing and instead I’m on the verge of an infomercial. Is it a plus for my life, my family and the world? Let me walk through this a bit. So I spend my year at key moments pulling out a digital image capturing device…Boom, I press the button and snap click get the image. My daughter sings on stage, boom, snap. My son builds a tower. Boom, snap. Two relatives are in the same room together. Boom, snap. Special moments, excitement, danger, it all begins to trigger in me the need to pull the trigger. Boom, snap snap.

Ah yes, I remember one of the ways it steals my soul: I stop being present. Picture taking steals the present. It’s like if every time someone offered you food you said, “THAT’S GREAT! GIMME THAT! I’LL JUST SHOVE IT IN THE FREEZER FOR LATER!” Is that what we are doing? Are we creating freezer-burned reality for our future selves?

Come on, Mr. Peabody. Lighten up. Smile. Say cheese! Can’t photography make us more present by focusing in on small rectangles of reality? by helping us to literally focus? But what happens to the outer rectangle? Man, that’s deep.

My friend John showed me a picture of a bottle of wine on his digital image capturing device. He said when he drinks a bottle of wine he likes BOOM SNAP he takes a picture of the label and then he has it. My friend Kevin was trying to find an adaptor for a donated computer the other day so he looked at the port it would need to fit and BOOM SNAP he had the image of the pins. Capturing images on our devices is a tool. It is supplanting writing and drawing in our functional lives.

Tonight I was going to read my kids a book but instead I just showed them a picture of a book. Way faster. Makes travel a lot cheaper and more efficient too. Here’s a picture of the Eiffel Tower, kid, now beat it. Don’t say I never take you anywhere. Hungry? Here’s a picture of a sandwich.

Of course, people aren’t taking pictures more because there’s suddenly been a reawakening to the artistic capabilities of photography. No, it’s because their phone can take pictures, good pictures. Used to be the phone rang (try to stay with me, kids) and you went over to where it was plugged into and/or attached to the wall, and you lifted off the receiver. The curly thick cord stretched out as you paced in the kitchen, talking, “Hi Ma. No, Ma. Yes, Ma. I will, Ma.” Cut the cord, shrink the phone to an 1/8 the size, put it in your pocket, go for a walk. See a green caterpillar munching on a leaf? Take out your phone and capture the image. You post it online and 17 people click a button to indicate they like it. Does that mean they like green caterpillars too or that they like that you thought to post an image of a green caterpillar for them to see? Presumably the green caterpillar doesn’t know its soul has been capture, converted through a process known as the Binary Solo into little zeroes and ones, then, at the end of the year, if chosen to be made real again, converted into the molecular density of photo paper, shipped back to the soul stealer, handled by little hands, set on a shelf.

The phone beeps, funks, riffs “Wasting away in Margaritaville…” Push a button and say, “Yo! What’s up?” Then, “Hi Ma. No, Ma. Yes, Ma. I will, Ma.”

Do digital image capturing devices steal our souls? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure the advent of faster, lighter, better gadgets leads to more time spent both taking pictures and moments later looking at the pictures you’ve taken. I’m pretty sure that leads to spending less time in the outer rectangle sometimes known as the life around you.

If I were to stab someone’s digital capturing device in the “i” would it kill it? Or would its owner suddenly rise up, laugh cruelly at my lack of understanding of the new world, and take me out of it?

 

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It Takes a Forest

01Jan12

I’m not going to get all caught up with my usual array of false promises to myself this year, especially since I did that in my last post, which was so last year, but I am going to start this first day of 2012 with a tiny little post, which might be followed by another post tomorrow, and so on for a good spell down the road. From there, we’ll see.

Today we, including our extended family of North Carolina visitors, took a walk in the woods of the Oakland hills. As we strolled along, further and further from our cars, the kids scampered happily ahead and we walked and chatted and rearranged ourselves and walked and chatted. The trees grew thicker and the conversations grew deeper. The light worked down through the oak leaves and pine needles, leaving bits and pieces of shadow here and there, and the trees breathed out oxygen as we rounded turns, climbed canyons, and wiggled through the forest.

Walking and talking. It may take a village (i.e. youtube tutorial videos) to raise a child, but sometimes it takes a forest to raise the quality of life in the village, not just as an escape, not just a place to work out your lungs and legs, but as a place of deep reflection on village life, a holy land from which we return, if we are very lucky,  a better villager.

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Learn People Better

30Dec11

Start small and build creative momentum. Write a sentence. Write another. Think about the new year.

Think about baby steps towards the promised land, not impossible self-promises. Number 15 on Woody Guthrie’s 1942 New Year’s Resolution list was “Learn People Better.” I would like to do that. I don’t think I can do that on Facebook. I think it involves meeting friends for a cup of coffee, a hike, a beer. Learn People Better also means staying in one place longer, allowing for silences, having a conversation beyond the barbed wire confines of convention: how are you good how are you good.

Think about electricity and imagination, about laptop screens and those yellow flowers just out the window. Think about the piano behind your back as you type this, the guitar in the corner just dying to write a song. Dying. Every year Amy and I talk about a return to Black Out Nights, evenings where we turn off our computers and phones and even beloved digital music for the rest of the night, inevitably, in a cold sweat, forcing ourselves to talk, to pick up instruments and play, to read, to play games and tell stories.

This year we have promised ourselves again Black Out Nights. How will we sustain our journey towards better selves? How does an idea move beyond idea and become committed, practiced reality? How can we learn our own people selves better and little by little make lasting change in our lives?

Maybe you have to involve other people. Maybe every new year’s resolution should come with a sponsor. Or maybe it’s just as simple as a Google calendar. What if there were not only a weekly listing on your calender but also a Google droid they sent out, a personal trainer, music teacher, or life coach? The doorbell rings and Googleman is there in his sweatsuit. “6 a.m.! Time for our run!” Googleman is at your door with a cup of coffee and a quote to start your day. He leads you back to your desk and says, gently but firmly, “Write! I’ll be back in 30 minutes to hear what you’ve written.” Googleman meets you after work, walks you to the market. He’s got three new recipes for your consideration.

There is an easy budget fix for most of our time management woes. It involves drastic cuts to the techn-minute allotment, allowing us to invest time in art, culture, education. Parents will often require kids to earn “screen time” by reading. What if we put that upon ourselves? You want to spend two hours watching football? Great. Start reading. Want to check Facebook for an hour? Start playing that ukelele.

Start small. Don’t wait for New Year’s Day. Have a dream you’d like to fulfill? Get out the sketch pad now. Reach for the guitar. Start melting the butter. Start spreading the news.

Your brain is circulating wonderful thoughts right now. Around and around they go, just waiting for you to open the gate and send the message shooting down to the hand or foot. Feel that stress in your muscles and bones? It’s simply you, holding back your finer instincts. Take a deep breath and let go.

Happy New Year!

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And Furthermore

12Dec11

This comment was posted on the CBS web site, beneath the Obama 60 Minutes interview:

by NJ_Dad December 12, 2011 8:45 AM EST
I’m a Republican, I’m employed, a homeowner, father of two, college educated and married, struggling to keep a college education for my kids and retirement at some point realistic options and I fully plan to vote for President Obama in 2012. From where I sit, the politicians of the Republican party have been the single most destructive force in America, unless of course you’re a major financial institution or large corporation. Everyone else is part of the herd that they feed on.

60 Minutes Video

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Say it with Me

27Nov11

Imagine for a moment the Republican Party were truly imploding. Imagine the financial collapse of the country were linked in people’s minds to the millionaires who have become billionaires while so many Americans have either lost their jobs or had to absorb the work of those lost jobs (and work twice as hard). Imagine the Republicans’ refusal to tax those millionaires and billionaires was linked to them answering to those millionaires and billionaires.

Just let yourself imagine that the Tea Party had pulled the Republican Party so far to the right with their lunatic candidates and complete obstructionism of any sort of possibility for bipartisan productivity, that frustrated centrist Republicans and Independents began to peel away from the Republican Party. Imagine that their recent claims that waterboarding is not torture, their recent efforts to eliminate worker’s rights, their assault on birth control and women’s rights, all that was beginning to erode their support in the center.

Wouldn’t that implosion manifest itself with a ridiculous slate of cartoonish candidates?

Imagine things had gotten so bad that the populace began to awaken and question the power structure, the financial assumptions of Wall Street and the mainstream media. Imagine people began to stand up and express their outrage, to expose this power structure by confronting it, by taking it in the eye with pepper spray. Imagine people began to feel the stirrings of activism, perhaps transferring their money from the big banks, perhaps starting to feel a little more comfortable with the words, “Tax the rich.” Imagine if people began to demand not only millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share, but also oil and internet companies.

Let yourself experience for an hour, a day, or even a season, a tiny glimmer of hope.

Imagine a tipping of the balance. (We’ll talk about the Democrats later.)

Begin with the words, “The Republican Party is imploding.”

Say it.

Believe it.

Make it happen.

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Handy Tip (a poem)

19Nov11

If your work doesn’t require the internet
and you have a lot of work you want to accomplish
don’t go on the internet

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Notebooks Made of Paper

16Nov11

I want to write more because if you write more you start to write more, which flies in the face a bit of less is more, though there is a difference there between frequency and quantity. That is to say, you can write more frequently while still trying to say more with less in your word choice. Deep breath.

Ancient Flashback to Beginning of Semester

First day of class. Night workshop. Time for a writing activity. I pull out my laptop and look around. Everyone else pulls out notebooks made of paper, pens made of plastic and ink. I whisper to a neighbor, “Are laptops allowed?” She says yes yes.

Next day in another class, afternoon workshop on language poetry. I pull out my laptop to take some notes. Look around. Everyone else is pulling out notebooks made of paper, pens of plastic and ink. I whisper to a neighbor. Yes yes.

Third class, night, craft of creative nonfiction. The syllabus said up front no laptops after the 15 minute writing prompt. Professor reminds us in person, says, “I assume you’re on Facebook or the like.”

I completely support laptops being banned from the class, but when they aren’t explicitly banned, and yet a room full of mostly 20 somethings choose to write with notebooks made of paper, pens of plastic and ink, I am confused. I sorta kinda thought the newer generations didn’t compose except by clickety clackety.

Someone please explain.

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Off the Shelf: Two Kinds of Time

03Nov11

“By one Chinese view of time, the future is behind you, above you, where you cannot see it. The past is before you, below you, where you can examine it. Man’s position in time is that of a person sitting beside a river, facing always downstream as he watches the water flow past.”

-From Two Kinds of Time by Graham Peck, 1950

And yet yesterday thousands of Oaklanders (and beyond) turned and marched up the river together, trying to get at the source of it, trying to figure out how to divert it to feed the 99%.

And yes, it’s going to take flash mobs, people.

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