At the Beach
Barefoot and bareheaded you
wander up, over and down the dunes
wondering where the wind
hid your loose-brimmed straw hat.
The warmth you feel caressing
your shoulders and lingering
where your hair bares your neck
is not late August sunshine.
Following your footsteps
feeling the same grass blades,
sand grains beneath my feet
I know I've found my paradise.
Something so simple as skin.
And the Heart Grows Fonder
Absence sleeps in the middle
of a bed too large for one,
huddled under two blankets more
than needed. With light,
I can fill darkened rooms;
with smoke I can still
rapid blood; with drink
I can quench all thirst
but this. No skin will
sate but the touch of you.
But look, the moon
tonight has left me too,
and being absent, is becoming new.
After Dinner
You open yourself as
uncorked wine, pour out
that subtle, supple, sensual
secret stuff inside; passion
bottled fluid, flowing, enfolding
the shrunken space between
us. Two tongues linger, languorous
wrapping together, tasting
words.
I lay drunk with you.
i'm looking at a (more accurately, the) demitasse cup i made earlier this year. it was an afterthought, as far as creation goes. just a way to use up clay left over on the wheelhead from throwing teapot spouts. yet it came out well, and now i drink coffee from it most mornings. this, naturally, means i need to make more (having only one). not only for my own use, but i need to practice throwing off the stack (or hump, depending on who you ask).
so, an examination of the shape is in order. how to improve it. two flaws in the existing piece: the foot and the handle. as far as the cup itself, the size is near perfect, as is the weight. the foot, however, is about a quarter inch too wide. as for the handle, it's too large and has consequently is a shape more fitting a larger cup.
i think about shapes often. bowls, plates, cups, pitchers, etc.. the taper of a bowl edge, whether it should be steep and narrow or wide and shallow. what uses are best suited by what shapes? where should a handle go? all of these things are important in the design of a piece. whether i think about them because of my love of pottery, or i love pottery because i think of these things is unclear. likely a mixture. no matter. i still find it important. so much so, that i'll pick up nearly every piece of dinnerware or vase, etc. in a housewares store.
shape defines not only look and use, but how a thing should feel in the hand. feel and fit. this is what i'm striving for: something that feels like a part of your hand. to accomplish this, what is essential to keep in mind is how you hold things. cups, for instance, are round for two reasons: the first is that wheel-thrown ceramics and blown glass produce round shapes. yet, those shapes are easy to alter (i square off bowls often). the second it the natural curve of our hands. this makes round shapes more pleasing to hold. try it yourself. i'm certain you'll agree. even with a handle on a cup or mug, we still often want to hold the actual cup. i know i'm not the only one who will wrap his hands around a mug, fingers slipped through the handle.
with a cup for a hot beverage though, handles are essential. after all, burns suck. so, back to my demitasse cup. because it's small and light (only should hold about 2oz.) i find i can only comfortably fit one finger through the handle. herein lies the flaw. the shape is better suited to accomadate two fingers, though scaled down a bit. i hold it, though, with one through the handle and one directly under it, supporting. however, the curve is not well designed for this. what i need to do, then, is create the handle with this method of holding it in mind. this will allow my natural inclination as to how to hold it feel, well, natural. the next step in my learning of this craft: how to alter the basic forms to suit function.
i've noticed my handles tend to skew to the left. now, considering that i'm right-handed, this isn't a problem so far as function goes. actually a bit more comfortable, as they conform to the curve of my fingers. aesthetically, though, this is bothersome. mostly because i'm unsure why. i'll have to ask in class this week. not sure if it's something in my pulling technique or when i attach the handle to the cup. something do to with shrinkage? likely not, because it seems fairly consistant. so i'm guessing it's my technique.
going to play with copper oxide this week too. didn't put the iron oxide on my ginko leaf impressions thickly enough last round, so they don't show through the glaze. but, light matte blue accent on the shaner clear is a very nice combonation. will likely try that again. should have two pieces finished this week; my first use of the shino glazes. need to find which of the available glazes is a good green. not as many earth tones available to me at this new place, but i'll find stuff the i like. eventually.
feels good to be back in tune with the wheel. took a little bit, but i feel i'm back at the level i was before moving. practice, practice. going to try my hand at tea pots again after turkey day. they're a pain, but i like the challenge.
these have been kicking around on my hard drive. you may have read some of them. thought about giving each a seperate post, but, well, i'm lazy. enjoy (or don't):
EDIT: 11/17 apparently, i should break these up. so i shall.
[poof! they're gone!]
now that's some special sauce. apparently, two cops in NM got pot on their burgers. this is not a topping option i've noticed at any burger king around here. maybe you have to ask for it?
remember that bullshit line from clinton? sure you didn't inhale bill, we believe you.
well, sad to say, bill's line is far more believable than this bullshit: Evangelical leader says he bought meth but 'never used it'. this is laughably stupid. it's one thing to claim that you just pretended to inhale when someone passed you a joint at a party, to look "cool". we know it's bullshit, but there is at least a scant bit of plausibility to the lie.
this, however...i mean, come the fuck on. who buys drugs and then throws them away? was he just curious as to what meth looked like? got enough of a high from the illicit thrill of buying meth? was going to smoke it (crap, do you smoke meth? i stay away from this sort of thing) but then had a change of heart? bought it for a friend?
really. i mean, when you get caught, fess up. people will forgive fucking up; they are less inclined to forgive blatant lies about fucking up.
can you sense a trend?
okay...so you want to have your name and address fields to be variable length. fine. that's nice, and thanks for putting a delimiter in there for me. however, you stupid fuckwits, if you then put the data into a fixed length table, you have done NOTHING but make coding more complex.
look at this shit:
* THE FOLLOWING IS THE NAME AND ADDRESS FIELD. IT IS VARIABLEfine, fine. but, you see, if you want a variable length table in cobol, you need to write: OCCURS 1 TO 156 TIMES DEPENDING ON NAME-ADDR-AREA-LEN. or somthing akin to that. otherwise, you have a fixed length table. such as above. in which case, you'd have been better off just defining the fucking field names so i could do simple moves, instead of having to write a routine to unstring the fucking name from the address. more over, if you and moving variable length data into fixed fields, there is no point. a variable table takes up the maximum defined size in memory when you run the program. you aren't saving any space in working memory. you certainly aren't saving space in the database. the only time variable length tables are useful in cobol is when you have a variable length OUTPUT. otherwise, it's just a pain in the ass.
* LENGTH, WITH A MAXIMUM OF 25 CHARACTERS FOR THE NAME AND
* A MAXIMUM OF 5 LINES OF ADDRESS AND A 5-DIGIT ZIP CODE
* THE FIRST 4 LINES OF ADDRESS MAY HAVE A MAXIMUM OF 25 CHARACTER
* EACH, AND THE FIFTH A MAXIMUM OF 20 CHARACTERS. THE LAST
* CHARACTER OF THE NAME AND EACH ADDRESS LINE IS FOLLOWED BY AN
* ASTERISK. THE LAST NAME IS FIRST AND IS
* ITSELF FOLLOWED BY AN ASTERISK.
10 NAME-ADDR-AREA.
20 NAME-ADDRESS-X PIC X OCCURS 156 TIMES.
so, i just got off the phone with comcast. why? because they were still billing me for service in CT. i moved to MD in the middle of august. i cancelled my service. they were supposed to turn it off.
why did they not turn it off? because, apparently, i wasn't home. of course i wasn't home, i'd moved to a different fucking state. in fact, i told this to the person i scheduled the service cancellation with, when i asked i could return the cable box in maryland. and mentioned that I WASN'T GOING TO BE THERE BECAUSE I WAS MOVING OUT OF STATE.
fucking morons.
i hate working on code written by consultants. why? because they don't always know what the fuck they are doing. nor does anyone else know what the fuck they did.
the problem i face is the necessary assumption that what i was given as a base was functioning correctly. i fear that assumption is, unfortunately, false.
it doesn't help that the design of these host systems sucks. really, really just sucks. why, for instance, create a spouse segment, and then store the spouse information in the "additional insured" segment? and if you decide to treat a spouse just like a second insured, why not get rid of the obsolete record layouts? fer fuck's sake, why is deleting so god damn difficult? isn't that what versioning tools are for? to retrieve stuff that might have been deleted if you find you still need it?
perhaps i'm anal. perhaps it's because i learned from anal people. but well-structured code is much easier to figure out. consistency. spacing on the lines. neat and tidy. so much easier. and jesus, why is every freaking working storage variable an 01 level? did they just want to make initialization more of a pain?
i hate this. i wish i could have written it from scratch. there are vast swaths of commented out code. why? why? for me to make any sense of what's going on, i have to clean it up. waste of my time, frankly.
ugh, i sound like one of those sticklers for standards. but, frankly, if you aren't going to be the only one working on a module, they help.
pers, august, keifus...this is all your fault.
Michelangelo Speaks to the David
You stand there, enslabbed,
lithic and waiting, an eon
old image: shepherd, young
king. So with chisel in hand
I will rend you bones
from earth into stone
and unvein you from marble.
Loosen your arm and sling
so to God again you sing
of awe, in marvel.
---------------------------------------------
minor edits/tweaks: oct 24
Michelangelo Speaks to the David
You stand there, enslabbed,
lithic and waiting, an eon-
old image: shepherd, young
king. So with chisel in hand
I will rend you bones
from earth into stone
and unvein you from marble,
loosen your arm and sling
so to God again you sing
of awe, in marvel.
EDIT: Nov 6
this is the final, i think
Michelangelo Speaks to the David
You stand there, enslabbed,
lithic and waiting, an eon-
old image: shepherd, young
king. So with chisel in hand
I will rend you bones
from earth into stone
and unvein you from marble,
unloose your arm and sling
so to God again you sing
of awe, in marvel.
what is it about lovecraft stories that inspires people to make such terrible movies from them?
halloween is nearly upon us, so it's time to watch creepy movies. so, whilst scanning what was on, my lovely pers selected "beyond the walls of sleep", noting it was an adaptation of lovecraft's story, and knowing that i thourghly enjoy reading lovecraft. awfully kind and thoughtful of her. however, the look of dismay and disgust that overwhelmed my face after about 2 minutes of watching that dreck quickly resulted in us watching "the omen" instead.
there were two grievious fault in the film: one forgivable, one not. the forgiveable fault was that it was just plain bad. a prime example of the downside of inexpensive and easily available digital cameras. while they do allow for talented filmmakers to show their potential, without having to have much in the way of a budget, they also allow the same opportunity to hacks with willing friends. note to all young, aspiring film makers: spastic cuts and editing do NOT bestow an atmosphere of horror and suspense. they just irritate, annoy, and occassionally cause seizures. we won't comment on the acting, because there wasn't any.
the unforgivable sin though, what what these assholes tried to do to lovecraft. i think they were trying to make the story hip and modern. lovecraft is not hip. lovecraft is certainly not modern (no lovecraftian character would ever call someone a cunt). certainly there are faults in his work (racism, sexism, a tendency towards purple prose, having inspired far too many hack imitations, etc.). however, they are still a pleasure to read. much of that pleasure is derived from the peculiar lovecraftian elements of his writing. high on the list here is setting. lovecraft is one of those rare writers whose work must remain rooted in it's time and place. just doesn't work otherwise. the turn of the century atmosphere is important, because it defines the character of his protaganists. who are dillatantes; amatuer scientists and men of "society". thoughtful, sensitve souls capable of attuning to the eldritch mysteries of the cosmos. lovecraft's heros faint, often as a result of their exposure to blasphemies from beyond the stars. they are not men of action, they are men of thought and theory (for the most part).
moreover, his brand of horror depends on what you do not see, not what is shown. the indescribable, the unnameable. actually, most good horror works off of this. it is what we don't see, don't know, don't understand that terrifies us. once the horror has been defined, it loses some of its power.
so what do people do with this? try to make slasher flicks. it's just plain wrong.
it's not hard to figure out what makes lovecraft enjoyable. what i cannot figure out is why filmmakers try to change it.
the issue at hand was transformation vs. rearrangement, and I asked you about igneous v. metamorphic rocks. How do they work? How do scientists distinguish different degrees of change? Is this model a helpful metaphor for talking about human change?
as you likely know, there are three major groupings of rock: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. you mention only igenous and metamorphic, but we really have to dicuss all three. igenous rock is primal and primary. that is, it is formed by cooling magma, either extrusively (ie: basalt) or intrusively (ie: granite). thus, as the earth first began to cool and form a crust, the first rock type to exist was igneous. sedimentary rock is formed from the lithification of eroded igneous and metamorphic rock; metamorphic rock is formed by the alteration by heat and/or pressure of igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic rock.
in a way, it's like heraclitus's river, again. the instance changes, but what underlies is the same. consider marble and limestone. chemically, they are identical: calcium carbonate. yet, marble is metamorphized limestone. what changes? crystal structure. however, that simple change has a profound effect.
granted, this is but one example of metamorphism. a simple one at that, as there is no alteration mineralogically. heat and pressure are extremely important factors in the crystalization of minerals. but, i suppose to say there is only rearrangement, not change is, while accurate, incorrect. that does imply there is no change at all in the universe.
as far as metaphor goes, i'm unsure. one could consider humanity as a base, with culture acting as a metamorphizing force. but that feels wrong to me. i think of culture more as clothing. changing clothes doesn't change the person wearing them, but it can and does change the perception of that person.
in response to this article on slate
actually, the world really hasn't changed much in millenia, if by "world" you mean human nature and civilization.
certainly an aspect of our world has been changed: communication. it's easier to communicate and be informed of events across great distances. however, this improved communication hasn't changed what those events are. it hasn't change what we are communicating about.
even romancing a woman 600 miles away, through the written word, is nothing new. people have been doing that for hundreds of years. they just had to write letters instead of text messages and emails. the act might have taken longer, but it was essentially the same.
what has changed, what continually changes, is technology. but remember, technology is simply our tool-set. humans are tool makers; this is an inherent, instinctive activity for us. thus we are always creating and improving upon our tools. even the reaction to new technology is the same: embraced as essential and common by the young (particularly those who grow up with it) whilst handled with a bit of trepidation and slight awe (in some cases) by those older, who grew up without these things. so, in walter's case, all these things would be going on simultaneously regardless of his knowledge of them. the only difference our brave new world has brought is the ability to access all of that information, as it happens. one doesn't even have to do that.
heraclitus claimed one could never step in the same river twice. he was both right and wrong. certainly, the exact water constantly changes; however, a river is more than just water. it is the channel, the stream bed, the banks, rocks in the course of the stream, falls, the flora on the banks, the fauna in the water. a part of the river may be in constant flux, but the river, as a whole, is fairly constant. so to with the human world. aspects change all the time, with great rapidity. fashion, technology, language, customs all fall in and out of common use. yet, the concerns of humans, the desires, needs, hopes remain remarkably consistent. so what has changed? not the world, but the means of interacting with it.
does this mean the end of the novel? of course not. if there is one constant of human nature, it is our love of discussing ourselves. even if we never really change. the novel will continue, and will, like other aspects of the human world, undergo superfical changes to reflect the superficial changes in society. but the core will remain untouched. because for all our changes, people never do change, do they?
just in case you were wondering why the layout is somewhat changed, tags have appeared and not everything works quite properly. i've gone beta, baby!
anyway, the new template editing is okay, but i never minded meddling with the html. tags can be useful if i remember to use them, and once i get past, say, 20 posts. granted, all of 5 or so people even look at this page, so just remember folks, this organization is for you!.
kind of irritating that the help section for the beta version, when telling you how to post pictures, directs you to software that doesn't work with the beta version. ah well. good thing i don't really do that.
not only is there a christie's auction of star trek memorbillia, but you can actually watch a webcast of it. just in case you're curious as to the sort of geeks buying this stuff.
my guess? a largely empty room, cause everyone bid online. if i'm wrong, anyone who calls me on it gets a bright, shiny nickel.
EDIT: update, 4:48PM. okay, it's strangely fascinating.
yes folks, it's october. for sensible folks (such as ye, thee and me) it means the leaves are starting to turn, the playoffs are under way (lacking the bosox, a fact that really requires an entire post to vent about), apple picking, cider, hayrides, bountiful harvest veggies, autumn and octoberfest brews and breaking out the flannel shirts (well, not today, cause it's like 80° or so, but i digress).
for retailers and retail marketing, however, it's time for their favorite orgy of consumerism. yes, we've passed through back-to-school season, and also through oh shit! i forgot stuff for school season. we've had a week's breather or so. but no more. once more, we plunge into the absurdity of Hallowthankchristoweenmasgiving!
sure, some might call it "the holiday season". but frankly, that's a dull term. nor does it capture the spirit of the true horror lurking in malls and shopping centers across the states. whereas hallowthankchristoweenmasgiving encapsulates precisely what this time of year has devolved into.
many moons ago, there were two major american holidays towards the end of the year. christmas, in late december, and thanksgiving, in late november. thanksgiving was easy enough to prepare for: turkey, lots of potatoes, cranberry sauce and plenty of alcohol. sure, there were other side dishes, but no one cared much for them. all that was required to properly celebrate was eating too much, drinking too much and then falling asleep whilst watching football.
christmas required getting presents and possibly going to church, on top of the overeating and overdrinking. but you didn't have to start shopping till about the 15th of december.
many moons ago, halloween was for kids and drunk students (with eggs and tp). you'd get some candy the day before to hand out. that's all. a blip.
but now, well, things are different. halloween has become a Holiday. granted, i can't say i totally disapprove, as it is deliciously pagan. however, one is expected to decorate houses (inside and out) with offical halloween crap. costume stores spring up everwhere. if you don't buy candy three weeks out, you're shit out of luck. it has become A Big Deal.
thanksgiving has morphed too. people are paying attention to the sides. instead of using the good china, you have the specific (oft turkey shaped) thanksgiving china.
ah, and christmas has just grown, since it's hostile takeover of hannukah. christmas shopping these days, should be finished sometime early november. and it's one after the other. the trappings at the altars of commerce don't just follow each other, they have begun to overlap. i'd not be surprised to see santa dressed as a ghost, being given turkey as a treat.
yes, we can no longer seperate them. it's hallowthankchristoweenmasgiving. and it's only going to get worse.
have been greatly exgagerated.
okay, so only one report, and not me but this blog. it's still here, so if you can see it, comment. if you can't, well, then you can't see this: :-P
