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Mimir Festival [Jul. 12th, 2009|08:29 pm]
Summer's red promise

holy minimalism and ragtime )
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unremembered raptures [Jul. 12th, 2009|01:44 am]
This morning I drove to Sister Grove Park, near Princeton, to take a walk amid the scraggle-woods.
I took lots of still pictures, though I did not get a picture of the star of the morning--a lovely Summer tanager atop a cedar tree. My new super-cheap vidcam did not perform very well, either.

I built a video of pictures I took today and in the past, soundtracked it with my recent song "Glow", and created this new video. it gives a good idea of what I see when I go hiking here:

Unremembered Rapture (images from north and central Texas) from Gurdonark on Vimeo.

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Blue hairstreak fantasy [Jul. 10th, 2009|09:24 pm]

Blue hairstreak fantasy, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

Today I could not resist the 35 dollar video camera at Big Lots. I love outmoded technology in all its lo-fi ways.

Tonight we went to the Market Street grocery for a fine meal (my wife: an exquisite-looking chopped salad; me: two slices of cheese pizza and fresh fruit). We walked around the little shopping area nearby. I held our soft drinks while my wife investigated a store devoted to the proposition that jeans should be more elaborate (and more elaborately priced) than the workaday. I wish I still owned a pair of overalls--and a yellow raincoat with a rain hat.

We stopped at Radio Shack for batteries and an SD card. The man who waited on us at the Allen Radio Shack, a former Marine, waited on us with interest and aplomb, though we were not big-ticket buyers.
I appreciate good service as one of the most gracious courtesies.

In our backyard, a blue hairstreak butterfly stayed on top of the black-eyed susan for minutes on end, leaving me the joy of my point and shoot camera in all its wonder and limitations.

Tomorrow I try out the new Chinese videocam.

Tonight I played with a new freeware softsynth named Felix, which is quite simple and fun.

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too lonely for epistemology [Jul. 10th, 2009|01:59 am]
I'm too lonely for epistemology

I've never been all that given over to loneliness. I've always been fortunate enough to have people I like to be with nearby. I'm also good at entertaining myself.

As I scramble about a bit, though, getting this work task or that work task done, I
remember a kind of quarter-life moment of crisis, when I was actively lonely.

I know that weblog posts are supposed to wrap up with a neat bow, either of brilliant observation or of pithy dialogue. But I will leave this one with a quick mention of the parched feeling of loneliness.
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Glow [Jul. 7th, 2009|10:31 pm]

Glow, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

humility )

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7 virtues wordle [Jul. 5th, 2009|08:59 pm]
I did a "wordle" of the liner notes I wrote for my EP Seven Virtues, which I released on Jamendo back in
January. This image says a lot about me, I think--click to enlarge:

Wordle: "Seven Virtues"
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(no subject) [Jul. 5th, 2009|07:13 pm]
The Kerr Comets (immature scissortailed-flycatchers 2)

quiet, with cute birds and sonorous drones )
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transcendentalist 4 [Jul. 4th, 2009|09:43 pm]
Dragonfly on a Texas 4th of July
independence day rapture )
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july 3 quick notes [Jul. 3rd, 2009|11:11 pm]
I arrived home from my Richmond trip late last night. Though we "officially" closed our office today, I went to the office to draft some documents. Then I stopped by the local greenbelt park, which has large trees along a rather controlled creekway. I saw nothing to make a birder gasp with enjoy, but I completely enjoyed watching a chickadee flit from tree to tree. I like the way my chickadees alight just long enough to tantalize, but not long enough to photograph. I stopped by Half-priced books, where I bought 2 DVDs--a Glenn Gould one (not the short films one, but another) and a Ravi Shankar live DVD. I also got a handful of used books. I had turkey at Spring Creek Barbecue.

We went to Rockfish Grill tonight, where I had grilled catfish, skillet potatoes and steamed vegetables.
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busy hummingbee [Jun. 30th, 2009|10:13 pm]
I've been working very diligently this week. Tomorrow afternoon I fly to the Deep South. Thursday evening I fly home. In between, I'll work on this and that. I got a lot done today, and I got a lot of hobby things done tonight. Yet I envy my wife, who saw two hummingbirds in our back yard Monday.

When we lived in southern CA, we had year-round resident hummingbirds. Now we have them as visitors a few times in June and September. But we do have scissortail flycatchers, which nobody in CA gets to see.
It's silly to miss what you don't have--I'd rather revel in what I do have.
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half catsup [Jun. 28th, 2009|08:20 pm]
Dusk and pines
pines and dusk )
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A Grain of Sugar [Jun. 24th, 2009|09:37 pm]

A Grain of Sugar, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

Folks get caught up in things sometimes. I remember once I had access to a baster full of peanut butter cookie dough. That sounds heavenly, but in fact I made myself so sick of this particular stripe of cookie that I could not eat that variety for years. When I was eating all that dough, I must have been telling myself a great story about how good it was to eat. That's the trouble with story-telling animals. They convince themselves that any thrill is good until it proves not to be--and then they pronounce a great moral lesson learned in an instant. Cookie dough turns into fortune cookie. The proverb is curled up inside.

Today the governor of South Carolina publicly confessed marital infidelity involving a rather absurd train of events leading him to Argentina in ardent pursuit of his ardent desires. Lots of talking heads are pontificating, and more than a few of the particular politician's own hypocrises are coming to light. Yet I think that folks who pontificate too much from some moral high ground act a bit too high and mighty for my taste. Everyone who is human understands what poor choices people make, and how human such errors are.
The robots may be exceptions. Leave the moralizing to them.

I have no great moral to present from the foibles of this fellow--other than perhaps to focus on one's hobbies, and try to live with as much
humility and simple kindness as one can. Everyone errs. I'd rather eat a grain of sugar than a feast of schadenfreude.

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green eyes [Jun. 23rd, 2009|09:41 pm]

Justice, Peace, Compassion, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

That fellow Mr. Reagan failed to become one of my favorite presidents.
He did say one thing, though, that I liked. It went "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall". Now the citizens of East Germany live in a much freer country.

This week we saw another wall come down. Even though this particular unrest has to do with a choice between a very reactionary figure and an even more reactionary figure, the young people marching in the streets are people we recognize. A wall between people came down this month-perhaps not forever, perhaps even with a tragic end still very possible.

Yet I conclude that if we give ordinary people the power to create and distribute media, then a lot of oppressive walls will not be long for this world. As we watch the Iranian theocracy flail under its own weight of irrationality, we hope that the cameras continue to focus, and point their lens in and beyond Iran, to every place in which people are denied basic rights and dignity.

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new milieu [Jun. 21st, 2009|09:40 pm]
ip )
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open video [Jun. 19th, 2009|10:54 pm]
openvid" )
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The spaces in between [Jun. 16th, 2009|11:57 pm]

Explain nothing., originally uploaded by gurdonark.

I'm taken with the idea of the spaces in between. The words beneath the words. The mystical silences. The distant blue sky. The smell of a pretzel mingled with steam. The shared, knowing look. The ineffable and the trivial, all joined as one.

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coffee cake and CPU [Jun. 14th, 2009|09:36 pm]
My wife treated us all to a breakfast of scrambled eggs, coffee cake, bacon, and orange juice.

I set out to get a new CPU, as the instability of my prior CPU finally became more bother than the bother of replacing it. My brother and my brother-in-law armed me with useful facts for my shopping, while my sister graciously loaded one of my older softsynths onto her computer so that we could ensure that it worked on a newer system.

The fellow at Microcenter helped me choose a unit both capable of meeting my heightened needs (my hobby consumes a lot of CPU space) and quite affordable.
The only obstacle I had was getting waited upon. I noticed that the number of potential buyers exceeded the number of staff members. A lovely young woman waited by a laptop with a concentrated look on her face, prior to walking off. Although I certainly believe that every customer, regardless of age or appearance, should be waited on promptly, I must say admit that the thought crossed my mind that if I were choosing a customer to ignore, I would certainly choose someone other than this particular vision in white.

I got home, box in hand, in time to see my sister had returned from shopping with my wife. We saw she and her husband off--we enjoyed having them visit. My sister has been coming to Texas to see me since the middle 1980s, when she, newly single, actually moved here to teach in inner city schools for a time in her early twenties. Her life has changed a lot in that time, and it was good to know her then and it is equally good to know her now.

I went a grabbed a couple of slices of pizza and a little wild bird seed. At Allen Station Park, I watched the water fall on the little railroad dam, and watched robins in my binoculars.

The set-up of the computer took place in record time. It proved so plug-and-play that directions were nearly unnecessary. So far I've installed my music studio software, my software synthesizer, the indispensable sample slicer the IxI Software Slicer, an anti-virus program, and a scrobbler for last.fm. I plan to
have fewer programs on this CPU than the last, but I plan for one of those programs to be a larger synthesizer, as I must ensure that I am not left in the cold if my current synth doesn't get updated as technology for operating systems changes.

We walked our dogs by the pond, where a little blue heron made a growling sound which seemed to say "bobcat", which was uncanny and fun.
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chick-a-dee-dee-dee [Jun. 13th, 2009|05:28 pm]
Prickly Pear Cactus Bloom, 3

My sister and her husband, who live in Alabama, stay with us this weekend. We enjoyed having dinner with them last night at San Miguel Mexican restaurant, and then saw them off when they went to hear a friend speak in Midlothian.

Today I visited Lake Ray Roberts, located in the cross-timbers region about an hour and fifteen minutes northwest of us. I walked the sidewalk trail through the woods. I saw prickly pear in bloom, and these Chickasaw wild plums in berry:

Wild Chickasaw Plums

I watched a set of chickadees jump from branch to branch, and heard their vibrant chickadee cry.

The lake features a swimming beach. Many people congregated on the sidewalks and parking areas nearby. I witnessed one toddler boy call for his young mother's help because the boy managed to slip his foot from a plastic pullover shoe. The mother quite wisely pointed out that the lad possessed the ability to put it back on. A small church in a nearby town featured a sign which said "Common sense is wisdom with its sleeves rolled up". Another boy of few years assured his mother that the boy suffered from a nosebleed, but the mother pointed out that the color of the effusion proved to be other than red, and less than suitable for sharing.

In one wooded section, Spring grasshoppers thripped in the grass, making a sound resembling the sound of a thousand tiny acorns gliding to earth. I drove past a field of longhorn cows whose horns looked long enough to be parodies of cowboy stories. I listened to the BBC re-tell the same four facts and surmises about the pseudo-election in Iran. I watched two starlings bathe in a puddle.

I stopped at Clark's Barbecue in Tioga, where I had a brisket sandwich, red beans, and collard greens. I read a vintage book about Lake Louise in Canada, an area I've long wished to visit. I crossed by the broad lake dam for Lake Ray Roberts. I thought about the nature of happiness and contentment. I slept until nearly noon before my day began.
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inventive [Jun. 12th, 2009|11:46 pm]

Can-jo, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

Everyone uses the term creative with a kind of mantra-like intonation that once was reserved for terms like "spiritual". I find something appealing in the notion of art-as-religion and religion-as-art. Yet I like the idea that people are inventive as well as, or in lieu of, being creative.

I like the notion that a kind of humility and self-sacrifice is necessary to invention or creative pursuits. I'm often amused, too, that people draw broad distinctions among different pursuits of invention or creativity, when the difference may be one of mode rather than substance.

I like, too, the idea that the true test of the value of creative endeavor is not money, or accolades, or even accolades by the *really insightful people*. The true worth of invention is and creativity and craft s the way that it gives life a kind of meaning. For some, it's unimaginable to live without those bursts of insight and direction.

I think it's an advantage, in a way, though, to enjoy creative pursuits but not to consider oneself particularly gifted or creative. To be second-rank spares one the burden of disappointment in oneself.

I read a weblog which made the well-trod point that perfection is the enemy of done. The key is not to be perfect--people are pretty much denied that by definition. The key is to do the things that matter to one--and to do them as tasks to be done.

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Life should be user-friendly [Jun. 12th, 2009|06:50 am]

Life should be user-friendly, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

I figured out how to get the computer back up in safe mode, although I have not figured out how to get my "My Music" folder files recaptures (and may have unintentionally actively dispensed with these files).

Nonetheless, I am grateful for each of the following:
a. I got an external hard drive which has captured my most fun files for the past x months, leaving only those music files I did not transition over to the external hard drive as potentially lost;
b. I regularly upload mp3s of finished songs and of photos to external hosting sites, meaning that I will not lose the ones so posted even in the worst extreme;
c. CPUs are so inexpensive that it's not going to be hard to replace this one.

I would have long ago switched CPUs when the current platform began to wear out but for the Vista introduction. I was concerned that a couple of my favorite bits of shareware would not work with Vista.
I wish, though, that I could make my system stay in operating shape (and recover the music files) until Windows 7 comes out. Its XP emulator might be just the solution.

I do wonder whether it is a virus or a system flaw that set me back these recent weeks. I had noticed that Mozilla firefox crashed too often, suggesting something was not in ideal order.

Still, if the worst thing in my life is this particular crisis, I'm all right.

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