If it looks like art, it must be somebody else's.

Reality is inexhaustible, but you get tired nonetheless.

2011-10-09T19:47:00.000-07:00

Today's rain washed away

the last of the warmth

lingering around after summer.

As soon as it got cold,

you started writing me letters again:

now you were building a house somewhere

with your Montana or Wyoming husband.

As if I never happened.
I don't want to hear about your husband,

and I could have built you a better fucking house.

Please don't write to me anymore.

Best,

Athens.

The patient says, "I'm having an epistemological breakdown!"

2011-10-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

And the doctor replies, "I suggest for you a 'reality check'."

Equipoise

2011-07-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

Equipoise - verb; to equal or offset in weight; balance.

What I do when I think about something is try to keep track of various biases and shortcomings, correct for them. Often, this leads to an analysis paralysis: there is no objective truth, there is no right or wrong. If you participate, you have to choose a side and have a good reason for it. All of our best arguments and debates will end in such stalemates.

Or, anything is permissible if you don't think about it.

Little Mice

2011-07-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

Little mice, holed up in your walls,

scrambling to find a way out.

I’ve seen one go tinkering by,

so we burnt the house

to get rid of them.

Rats.

That’s what they became under your skin,

as soon as they got into your imagination:

rats running, rats foraging, rats eating,

rats holed up in your walls.

Do the knife fight.

2011-07-14T18:56:00.000-07:00

This one is for the one knows a lot.

Who needs 3d?

2011-06-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

"My Heart Has More Rooms Than a Whorehouse"

2011-06-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

How to spend the time on the subway.

2011-06-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

2011-06-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

says hi

Ideas, Floating

2011-05-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

ideas in conversation

1.

2011-03-24T13:08:00.001-07:00

I once offered to a man / what death could not.

.

piano player

2011-03-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

player piano

2011-02-25T08:55:00.000-08:00

man is an island
from which we sail sinking ships
in exploration

Basic White Collar Fraud Flowchart

2011-02-18T16:25:00.000-08:00

[click to zoom in]

ALWAYS

2011-02-12T20:55:00.000-08:00

talking with the street

2011-02-08T10:58:00.000-08:00

[full view for details]

Mountains

2011-01-28T23:03:00.000-08:00

sometimes hills, sometimes mountains

the dog days are over

2011-01-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

Shrine

2011-01-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

[click to full view]

"what are you doing" she asks.

2011-01-02T19:53:00.000-08:00

Mythology

2011-01-02T19:45:00.000-08:00

live every day as if in a dream

Hipster Still Life

2010-11-17T19:58:00.001-08:00

& like micro herbs on the windowstill

Vultures

2010-10-28T13:08:00.001-07:00

inspired by Caitlin Hackett's Contemporary Mythology

2010-10-25T21:39:00.001-07:00

I took a short journey to the land of the people,

and I found you.

I opened a book of poems,

and I found you.

I spelled your name slowly,

and looked for you in unknown places.

Surely you are joking, I told my heart,

and it laughed your laugh,

having long set sail into the recess of my mind.

Urban Drawing

2010-10-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

The combination of a duration drawing (following a single action through a scene) & four perspective drawings panning 180 degrees to create a drawing closer to how you would percieve the world. [click for full view]

Self Portrait in a Crowded Room

2010-10-18T12:22:00.001-07:00

at some point he entered the center of indeterminacy
and saw everything that could have been at all once

And after 6 days of long hard work, ...

2010-09-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

...God finally says "Well I'll stop here. I've done all I could."

The snake asks him then, "And what did you do?"

And God replies, "Everything."

People

2010-09-22T10:13:00.001-07:00

some kind of old ritual, i think

People

2010-09-22T09:39:00.001-07:00

pen, india ink

2010-08-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

this what i often imagine paris to look like in a memory

200 W 133 ST

2010-08-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

its home

Donkey & Kot

2010-08-05T20:01:00.001-07:00

How Francis Scott Fitzgerald Wrote His Stories

2010-07-31T11:31:00.000-07:00

At first, Mr. F Scott Fitzgerald wrote a simple honest story: here is this man, you see, and he is rather successful, he has a beautiful wife and a beautiful house and he has chased his dreams to the end and everything is all right. This is how things should be. But then you see, his wife dies and it turns out she was rather his mistress, and someone else's wife. And then you try to find police outside his house and people start asking all sorts of questions, and turns out he was a smuggler or made his money in some other fantastic but under the table ways. And then you have this man, and he has two stories, one that he made up for you and one that he lived. Both are as equally real as they are false. And turns out the guy didn't have his dreams come true anyway and had a drinking problem to boot. Cause, you know, when you start the first page of a book with a man's virtues, there's no way but down.

A theory about Revolution:

2010-07-30T20:11:00.001-07:00

It involves moving away from something, not towards.

The little man who made trinkets.

2010-07-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

He was afraid to stop.

If we were to have the infinite, everything would be possible.

2010-07-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Consider the small following example: if we were to have the infinite combinations of all letters, we could read the full accounts of the future, all the short and long versions, in every language and to account for each individual writer's distinctions: misspellings, biases, and opinions. Everything you could have possibly thought and anything that could have possibly happened would already exist.

In a world of the infinite, everything is.

How The World Came Into Being

2010-07-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

How Dostoevsky Created the World

The first thing Dostoevsky did was sigh-- and thus created an infinite well in which to place all things. This is why all things in this world seem to be born out of despair.

Then he created impulses and emotions and ideas. Then he created good people and bad. And then he created the environment for them to live in, but never told them who was which. This is why all things seem tinged with emotion and why ideas seem our reasons for actions. This is why it does not matter where we are, we are still slaves to our ideas... and this is why we cannot tell clearly what is good and what is bad.

Such is how Dostoevsky created the world.

How Borges Created the World

Borges created an idea to embody the world. Then he created characters to embody the idea. Then he created the world to embody the characters.

Let it be said: that Borges was creating was proof of a reality and a reality was proof that Borges was creating.

How Philip K Dick Created the World

Philip K Dick had created a world on simple principles and then set himself into the world to test if they work. Amidst the experiment, losing track of that he was in a world of his own creation, he began to tug at those principles and at some point, because he pushed them the wrong way, they fell fell down or disappeared. But the world didn't, and then there was no longer for Philip K Dick a way out to fix things.

How the Group 'Oulipo' Created the World

First Oulipo was experimenting creating rules and constraints and then breaking them, and from those shards, creating new rules and constraints, over and over, until Oulipo had created rules and constraints that they were satisfied with, and made the refuse of all the rest into a heap to conform or to be folded into the molds of their experiments.

How Stravinsky Created the World

Stravinsky created the world by first sending forth a scale of notes to be the foundation on which all was laid. Then he sent forth melodies and rhythms and patterns and they would bounce around and crash into each other to form a landscape and populate it until there was something resembling a world, but to everyone else it looked like just noise.

Roman Kudryashov, July 22nd, 2010.

A very old man,

2010-07-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

wrinkled, folded, burrowed in a labyrinth of his old age once came upon an angel. The man, who had seen and done so much, asked the angel-- "why am I to die? Why is age folding me up into a neat envelope to mail me away?"

And the angel replied: "Because though you have grown physically great, your soul has never grown-- your body is confined to your soul and as big as you grow physically, you will fold over yourself into a small and wrinkled old man, the size you are inside."

And the old man then decided to trade his soul and not be confined to the world after-- instantly his wrinkles unfolded and his hair moved back to where it came from, and his blood rushed from his face back into his muscles, and the air back from the world into his lungs. Whole again, he was twice the size and vitality he had been when he was younger and the size of his life and experiences reflected on his stature.

But this was the old man's choice-- for him there would be nothing beyond death.

They set sail on a ship

2010-07-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

through storms and battles and over all the seas and oceans. They never once changed ships or traded or taken over another's, but on return they were on a different ship.

How could this be?

What is the value of culture?

2010-05-08T19:44:00.001-07:00

If you have not contributed something to the world, then you have contributed nothing. If you do not create in some way, then you miss out on the quality and value of culture.

Mornings

2010-04-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

TODAY

2010-04-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

12am - Still at work.

12.30am - Boris visits me at work. Says he is working till 2am. I tell him I am getting off around 1.

1am - I get off work. Drink a glass of tequila. Collect 36$ and walk around the block to where Boris works.

1.30am - Working on my second glass of tequila.

2am - Boris gets off work. We discuss women. Take the A line downtown to West 4th St.

2.15am - I need to pee. Instead of exiting the subway, we walk down the steps to the tracks.

2.17am - I pee. We start walking uptown on the tracks from W4th to 14th St.

2.20am - First train passes us real close.

2.27am - Second train passes us. We wave.

2.34am - I set off a silent alarm somewhere at the end of a long stairway labeled 'Emergency Exit'. Run back down the stairs.

2.36am - Third train passes us.

2.43am - Fourth train passes us.

2.45am - We exit the subway, ecstatic, full of adrenaline. A crying lady passes Boris. He tries to find out whats wrong but a black woman erupts on him, yelling to stop and mind his own business. She also chokes her boyfriend when he tells her to calm down. Boris, later: "I didnt know whether to be scared or to punch her."

3.15am - We stop on the steps of a karaoke place on St. Marks to smoke a cigarette. A drunk girl stumbles out, looks at me, asks me for a light, lights her cigarette, and says "You're cute." We have conversation. We walk around, hungry (Me and Boris and the girl [Denise Lohan] and her friend), looking for a Sake Bar, a Noodle Place, a Cuban Place, or really, somewhere/anywhere to eat.

3.30am - Veselka has a 20 minute waiting time to be seated at this time of night. What the hell.

3.40am - We sit down at Jaffa Cafe. I order A few coffees and Soba noodles. We four talk.

4.50am - We leave Jaffa Cafe, 40$ less. The girls take a cab to Grand Central Station, back to Yonkers, back to Sacred Heart University in Conn. Me and Boris set off home.

6am - Bus to Weehawken.

6.30am - Get home. Drink water. Pass out.

11.am - Wake up. Fall asleep.

1.20pm - Wake up. Fall asleep.

1.50pm - Wake up. Go online. Talk to Britni online.

3pm - Go offline. Listen to music. Eat breakfast -- oliviye, bread with caramelized sugar.

3.15pm - Bath. Listen to Girl Talk's "Night Ripper" album.

4pm - Still listening to Girl Talk. Next, new LCD Soundsystem album. Put on boxers. Work on photos.

5pm - Photos collected, uploaded. Nap.

5.30pm - Wake up. Stop daydreaming. Put on clothes. Clean the area around my couch.

6pm - Watch the sun setting on NYC. Play guitar. Take a few photos.

7pm - Get out of the house, finally.

7.40pm - Get to the city. Eat 1$ pizza for lunch. Go to 44&X to pick up paycheck from last night. 230$.

7.50pm - Visit Bopris around the block at work. Find out what time he gets off. Go back to my place. Sit down at the. Order Gin& Tonic.

8.30pm - Second Gin & Tonic. These are water glass size and mostly gin.

9pm - Stumble out of work, having found out my schedule for the week. Go get food at Yum Yum Too's.

10.15pm - Fumbling with my drunken noodle dish.

10.45pm - Boris gets off work. Pay for food, take a taxi to the last showing of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" by Banksy at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. Watch it.

12pm - Its good. Inspired again.

12.15am - Get a call from Julia that she can pick us up. We meet her at 58th St & 7th Ave. Meet the new dog we are fostering, "Junior". Decide that "Shoka" is a more fitting name.

12.30am - Start my laundry. Start typing. Good evening, guys.

Little People

2010-04-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

Carved from Wine Cork

Work / Thought

2010-03-22T16:44:00.001-07:00

Naked City

2010-03-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

every city a story, every building a bookcase, every star a

Veselka, 5am

2010-03-15T03:56:00.001-07:00

time

2010-03-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

The City, A Haiku

2010-02-26T17:38:00.001-08:00

Words;

all it takes

to ruin a view.

1-3-5

Goin Somewher

2010-02-17T19:14:00.000-08:00

Interview

2010-02-16T01:11:00.000-08:00

Q: How do you come up your ideas, where do you get your inspirations from?

A: I write what I want to read if no one has thought it, draw what I want to see if no one has seen it.

brief moments of continuity

2010-02-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

somewhere hidden, a small prince

The American system of thought is pataphysical.

2010-01-25T13:47:00.001-08:00

We probably could have done something a long time ago?

One archeologist to another,

2010-01-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

"Why not be content with having discovered something else?"

Manifesto

2010-01-04T17:51:00.000-08:00

Our generation is grounded in realism, in that we are waking up from a dream we have held for years and years and awake to our own concerns, all the problems we have caused in the world. Realism in that we have been too long sleeping and reading and looking at pictures or pictures of the world and let the world die underneeth our feet so firmly planted-- how can you create art in such a setting? -- no, to create art is stupid! --the point is to wake up and not be lulled by calls to action, of act and not seeing is acting out! If I were to write a book about this, it would be but one page:
"Wake up! You have been dreaming for too long!"

Припять, Чернобыль

2009-12-25T02:42:00.000-08:00

the collected poems of wıld dogs

2009-12-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

the collected poems of wıld dogs--
poems lıke struttıng butterflıes, ımages from one thought to the next,
poems from one dream to the next
.
.

Lonely Throne

2009-11-21T03:50:00.000-08:00

he feels like a cold wet dog on a lonely throne
trying to ease his mind

For a greater part of the morning...

2009-11-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

For a greater part of the morning, the little boy lay in bed listening to people walking on his ceiling. He took notes: "Top left corner to top right. Two top right to bottom right. One back TL. Shifting BR, pipes running TL (bathing?). Off. TL down center, shifting."
At odd hours, the footsteps sometimes danced alone upstairs. He transcribed a dance that way, once, rather unaware. Today, the morninglies both ended and no more sounds creaked down. He listened to the cars go by but all he could discern was the steady sound of traffic and sometimes brakes nearing what he assumed was a light. He took notes on the clouds going by his window: "Cirrus, 3, left to right, 2 fast 1 slow. Lazy nimbus up above. Helicopter drones, top right corner..."
Off in the distance, he watched an airplane go by, leaving a trail behind it.

Composition: ___________________

2009-10-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

He found a notebook one day that would let you read any person's mind. The instructions were that you write the name on the cover and everything else would be inside. He spent weeks then going through books, thinkers, ideas, through people famous and obscure, wise and happy, real and not, but in the end, the name on the notebook was his own.

Morning

2009-10-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

So nice
Nothing to do
Nothing done

lalala

2009-10-23T01:32:00.000-07:00

lıfe goes on

Gypsy

2009-10-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

The weather ıs stıll nıce--
Takıng pıctures, wrıtıng poems,
But mostly just walkıng.

He sits atop a good breeze, stop.

2009-10-17T06:36:00.001-07:00

He lives on an island, stop,
where its been a good couple of years,
fishing, swimming, walking, living,
and he passes the time in life.
Away from all the pollution of mediocrity,
the ghosts of past and present and
the ever increasing stresses and tolls
and long winding roads into nothingness.
To tell the truth, he lives a happy life,
walking in up in the midway between day and morning
to set out on fishing trips as a job
that is half realized,
knowing the locals to come through,
he is living life as like in a song,
where happiness sings with sunshine.

Today, the sun rises early as the fan like helicopters spins round his bedsheets,
lightly tossing the edges to and fro, and the dog wakes early as the sun strokes his fingertips.
The claws retract and he mildly steps into bed, a few inches higher, alongside me.
Like morning wakefulness stretches out the spinal cord and the filial brotherly muscles ,
everything slightly ever so slightly pulled wakes up within them,
every so ever so restful with the sun caressing our fingertips.
Rising early to the sun filled breakfast room,
a dinner room appropriated for the joys of a simple pleasure,
the dog walks assured up the steps and man follows slowly behind in a life where nothing resists,
and the cat lightly silking upon to his lap, appropriated.
The eggs and bacon sing upon the countertop, roasted, cooked, fried,
sulking gently into his mouth, determined not to be eaten
but remain the picaresque, picturesque transpiration of break-fast,
sinking, sinking, sinking down the chutes of digestion,
though first through jaws of inconsistent desire of flavors,
white teeth of realization florescent with morning seethe.

With the morning slowly passing hours, the oars and sails ready the wind,
calling for the tides and for Neptune, calling for the briskness of the waves
upon so simple a man, out in a simple bout for genuity.
He sinking his line, he sinking his weight, eight,
into the cool blue that shadows in on itself,
ready for the line to bobble or to bop,
the line ready for the wish and the bait peaceful, resting,
which at the market will once be cut out and removed,
unto a saltly smell of satisfaction, of market and of deliverance,
the salty smell of sea that comes with the lowering of the tides
as ships slowly sail out to bay.

And the day, still in its infancy, nursed like a mother delivering a boy to old,
it husks about, as we set out among the waves deserted by the fisherboats,
the boats sailing the waves reserved for us surfers of the endless summer,
of simple mass, acceleration, velocity and speed,
like knives floating gently atop the curved surfaces of the fruits in the forest,
knives ready for to pierce the inventory, ready to be tossed about stained by juice,
women waiting ashore, their mouths opened and closed,
desire metaphysically the exhalations of our muscles, of our calf and limb and thigh,
of body stained by the seas, of body staining the sea,
watching with eyes of a certain glimmer with hair tossed back by the wind,
a constant air moving like it would have happened to be a sensual wave of style,
tossing the skin and radiance with little carves and caresses
alongside the small cool ties of cloth so too stained by sea and salt,
so too licked with the sweet waves of a cool femininity
bumping with gooseflesh, little here and theres adding a touch of mystique and coldness
waiting for to be protected, caressed, held and exulted,
she sits there, waiting and waiting and watching for the day to set with embers,
quietly appropriated into singularity of desire.

60 Seconds

2009-10-17T03:21:00.001-07:00

Now that it's over, let me enjoy it.

9/24

2009-09-24T04:49:00.000-07:00

...and the last day in Athens was alright, but with nothing better to do, he set out for Olympus anyway.
To get to the mountain, he had to take a 6-hour train to Tesseloniki (which would become a major stopping point for his northern-Greece travels) and then another hour and a half bus ride to Litoxoro, the small town at the base of the mountain range. He spent the 8-hour wait for the train reading, daydreaming, napping, solving sudoku puzzles, and trying to...

...already worn out, he said goodbye to the German couple and began the last 3-hour hike with the sun already failing...

...ariving at the Refuge (2100meters high) an hour after sunset, guided by a little LED light up and down the narrow climb, he walked in to a loud slav-germanic party. Not in any mood for festivities, he treated himself to warm noodle soup and two bananas before lights out at 10pm.
By 8.30 am the next day, he was walking again, this time leaving his 35lb bag at the refuge, making the going a bit easier. By 9.30, the Bosnian-pine forest had given way to gravel and a few small bushes, and by 10.15 (hike up an almost 45 degree base) he had reached the first peak, Skala, and caught up with the big party from yesterday-- with them, he began to the scramble (light climb) up the at times almost verticle face to Mytikas, at 2919 meters (9577 feet). There, he found out that the party he was with was the Montenegro Niksicko Pivo (beer brewery) Company climbing team, and was filmed for a promotional for the beer. Together, they spent a half hour singing, drinking, and taking pictures above the clouds before climbing back down.

...arriving at Paralia (Katarini) thanks to the Montengrians, loaded up with beer and a few sandwiches, spending the next morning carving up a watermelon with his swiss knife on the beach, watching a tugboat try to pull some refinery ship in vain. They should have probably pulled up the anchor, he thought, going back to daydreaming about what it would be like to be a pirate, or at least live on the seas for some time...

* * *

Students

2009-09-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

At age 47, the institute's professor of theology retired due to on-the-job injury: his faith had been shaken.

The beauty of the world

2009-08-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

lies in that which is unsaid, unseen, unexperienced. Dreams are the secrets which make you beautiful, dear.

Today, I fell as if into a dream...

2009-08-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

So deeply lost in my thoughts that after stopping to take note of an idea, I am puzzled for a few moments, thinking "...what was I reading? ...have I misplaced it?"

girl

2009-07-30T09:39:00.001-07:00

oulipo

2009-07-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

Two physicists, behind me, talking?
Two physicists, behind me? Talking.
Two physicists? Behind me, talking.
.

Lazy Days

2009-07-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

No where to go, no one to be.
(click for full view)

Today,

2009-07-07T21:58:00.001-07:00

I daydreamed instead of eating breakfast and then I went to work.

Home From Korea

2009-07-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

...it is a little lonely when you are among people too...

Clouds

2009-07-03T19:56:00.001-07:00

heart palpitations

Five Abstract Geometries and One About Love

2009-06-27T16:36:00.001-07:00

(click to enlarge)

A Joke

2009-06-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

A soon-to-be husband and wife walk into his father's certain store. Asking for the finest cheese, she is given a rather generous portion. She is asked, 'How is it?'
'Too much, too heavy, it is suffocating,' she says.
'I cannot marry you then,' says the soon-to-be husband. 'My love for you is like that.'

Still From a Movie

2009-06-16T18:25:00.001-07:00

Sunflowers

2009-05-31T20:20:00.001-07:00

She asks,

2009-05-29T16:17:00.000-07:00

"How hard is it to find the right girl?"
Well, There is only one of you.

Of Style, Lately

2009-05-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

Well, if I should choose to leave this country
like one should choose to leave a toast
and getting drunker every moment
my decisions seem no worse

And yet the hour, the day, the night,
In passing tumult bring the light
And then, invigorating sorrow
Clouding plans made for tomorrow.

You seem awakened, seem anewed,
A cup of tea now freshly brewed
To keep the demons up all night,
Which every morning seems less right.

Well, i've seeken distilled spirits,
Cloudly lums been kept at bay
And through my impotent discisons,
Been quitely rightly held at bay.

Ah, tomorrow comes a shudder
Been worked over now all night
And tossed like ravages through morrow
And now gently, guiding blight.

Christ, I thought you would stop haunting
Every single neckline fault
And yet still time seems to deceive us
As we quickly give them halt

But I know not judgment, only guilt, sir,
I was just hoping to be fixed,
And yet the preacher still deceives us,
Born among our stolid pitch.

So, I tell you, do not worry,
he drunks better when he write,
Dont let deceptions be deceiving,
And know no nothings hang tonight.

Newsweek

2009-05-05T11:08:00.001-07:00

Old Issue?

The City

2009-04-30T06:53:00.001-07:00

Cafe Chicago

2009-04-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

You never want to hear a Doktor say

2009-04-24T10:55:00.001-07:00

O! We will have to amputate the neck!

Work in Progress

2009-04-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

but i don't think i'll be coming back to it anytime soon
(Simon of the Desert from Luis Bunuel)

a poem about time travel

2009-04-13T20:57:00.001-07:00

today nothing happened
tomorrow nothing happened either

Free Will and Determinism

2009-04-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

Suppose, can free will and determinism exist simultaneously? With writing as an example: when a character comes to some sort of choice-making scenario, allow me the leeway of saying I will give him free will. This free will will allow him to choose his own path, make his own choice. To make this happen, as the writer I will imagine myself with the character's ideals and mindset, arguing for them through their eyes and situation. And assuming I am any good at in character writing, the character does not have to be similar to me, and this comes off as a genuine free choice, not contrived by some god-machine writer's hand. But, those ideals and worldviews and even the situation and conceit were already imagined and created by that god machine writer. Where does that leave us? The characters have their fates open, but their personalities and world and even the choice-making scenarios have already been a-priori determined which will undoubtedly cast more than a shallow shadow over them. Do we then have free choice existing within the realms of a greater deterministic universe, much in the way our own lives function, predetermined by genes, upbringing, and the world situation, but given a limited reign over what we can accomplish within these constraints?

Likewise, the duality of free will and determinism comes through in the actual act of writing as well. On the first go through, as the writer is constructing his story, everything is left open, free. But as soon as it is written down, it becomes a written fictional history, and will not change no matter how many times you read the book through (excluding, of course, choose-your-own-adventure-books, that's an entirely different matter... well... rather, I actually close with something similar, but digression aside...). So history is deterministic and the present and future are free-willed, barring some sort of god coming down and stirring his fingers.

The last point about free will and determinism's possible coexistence is then the 'choose-your-own-adventure' scenario. Suppose, you are traveling down a path, and you come to a fork in the road. Beyond that initial fork, the road forks again and again from each path, leading into a sort of trickle down spiderweb of choices from where you are. Thus, you have the free will of the choices you will make, but if (theoretically) you can see where each choice will lead, you are still within a universally huge constraint of determinism. A muddied one, of course, because it is not quite perfect in that there is no predetermined one conclusion. And of course a muddied free will, because you know (theoretically) the outcomes of both choice A and B, but it is still up to you to choose.

Hence free will and determinism are integrated in three different ways? RK

Designated Wanking Area

2009-04-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

9-17 Luan-Sath

It was on day that I was...

2009-04-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

It was one day that I was walking through a New Mexico dessert, somewhere that was not anywhere that I came upon a faded man, somewhat like a dull pink which was once violet on a favorite shirt. He was there, lying unquestionably in a television dish, one of many in the region that had just been left unattended years ago due to the extinction of entire towns. The satellite, once white, now just sat colorless, motionless and undistinct from the dirt except for its protrusion from the earth. Assuming (or rather hoping) the man was still alive, I asked him: “How far is the nearest town?”

Getting no reply, I asked again, louder. The man shifted his weight and sat up. He slowly came to focus on me and with rightful absurdity, slowly told me: “There is nothing here.” He then stood up and put his mouth over the antennae. He seemed alright how he was, so I didn’t question him further. I continued walking for a couple more miles, and seeing nothing, I turned to look back at the native of this area: he was still behind me, only smaller (as distance seems to do to perspective), feeding off the radiation of humanity’s by products. I supposed it could have been worse and continued to walk. There was nothing here for me.

What I Miss About Childhood in the Summer

2009-04-03T16:20:00.000-07:00

Riding my bike along after a thunderstorm in the slightly damp air, riding it through puddles and getting mud splashed on me way before anyone thought that splatters on shirts and jeans were cool, watching the clouds go by, somewhere, the lazy sunlight, then being chased home, winning halfway, losing halfway, by more clouds, by more rain, and running inside with legs worked out and breath short and sitting down and watching the rain close the last gaps of between daylight and another storm and then nightime.

The Middle Way

2009-04-01T19:13:00.001-07:00

Nothing matters.
Everything matters.

Today, The Weather Has Been...

2009-03-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

The sky above the sky above the

2009-03-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

was filled by a god atrophied beyond decay.

The problem with

2009-03-16T06:31:00.000-07:00

the economy isn't just that the markets are plummeting... They are, and so are jobs, hours, wages, and the likes. The problem involves that the cost of living isn't falling with everything else. Except for gas prices, the cost to own a place to stay, for utilities, for necessities, these things stay the same inflated prices as when everyone had more money. So this becomes not only an economic crisis, but a lifestyle crisis.

Roman Kudryashov has been infected with poison.

2009-03-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Do you wish to use antidote?
>Yes
>No

Bokeh

2009-03-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

The Merits of Focus in Photography.

Traditionally, photography has been associated with the real, the undeniable truth, with an essence of reality. The poetry of photography has grown out of Photoshop and darkroom editing, of capturing Henri Cartier-Bresson's "Decisive Moment", or of posing, modeling, fictionalizing reality.

Intermission not to sound academic.

Out of focus photography, however, remains a marginal tool in capturing a photograph. Why? Well, for one, something out of focus is not captured in a traditional sense. Something out of focus work is seen as a failure-- consider holiday snapshots where everyone is smiling around the table but all you see is minimally identifiably blogs of color-- the photograph has failed because it has not achieved it's purpose, of recording a moment of reality to remember.

Transition: wearing glasses puts perspective on focus.

Of course, a shallow depth of field, meaning something in focus in the foreground and the background out of focus to provide a natural background (or less commonly, the other way round) is one of the most common things you will see. In fact, certain lenses for portraiture have an aperture so large it is impossible to avoid having the end of the nose blurred out when the eyes are in focus. Once again, a shallow depth of field provides a natural backdrop for a photograph. Likewise, selective blurring serves to make something the obvious focal point, to draw attention on that which is most clear. Furthermore, a motion blur of either the subject or the background can serve to create a very good sense of speed.

Disclaimer. Hokey leg pulling to follow to create a bad argument for a bad idea.

Full photograph blurring, as pointed out earlier, is considered a failure. However, when the goal is not of recording reality but of creating an image, the blur can be a beautiful tool. Consider the first moments of waking up-- everything comes out of a dream, slowly falling into focus, either cognitively or sensually. An out of focus photograph can serve the same purpose, to convey those dream-like moments when nothing is quite clear but something definitely exists, is happening.

A similar tool, soft focus, when something is barely out of focus, is used to smooth out the details of an image to provide the same sensuous overtones. In fact, soft focus has been commonly used in movies, especially older films, on solo takes of an actress, while the actors will be in a hard focus, gritty. The soft focus helps bring out the feminine softness, for lack of a better term.

Another use of blur is of a deep blur, when the image is distorted to a point of little or no understanding, retaining only basic shapes and colors. This can be used to an effect like of much modern art-- to capture not reality but the details of reality most commonly overlooked in a photograph. That is, a deep blur will bring out elements of visual geometry, relationships between shapes and colors, between somewhat identifiable objects or to the point of abstraction. Similarly, a deep blur will convey emotion or attitudes in a more universal way, without getting lost in the details and the individual moment of the actual image. Much in the way many old school photographers prefer to work in only black and white for reasons of color getting in the way or being improperly affecting the image to a point of distraction, a blur lets the actual image take second place to the other elements.

Whew wasnt that fun.

However, its simple to ruin a photograph with a blur. Blurring, contrary to opinion, is very easy to get wrong. Blurring, like everything else, has to be taken in moderation, and has its own degrees and levels and tints of use. Something over blurred will simply be hard on the eyes, like looking cross eyed at something. Too little will make it appear like your lens sucks. The wrong photograph blurred will look ridiculous. The right one to a wrong degree of blurring will look wrong. like with all things, a fine line, a fine merit exists to the subtle art. But it exists, the art. It can work, there can be a poetry outside the conventional reality.

RK

I expect this one to be misunderstood.

2009-03-03T19:34:00.001-08:00

I mean, even I don't really understand it yet.

Encyclopedia of Snow

2009-03-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

ideas falling

White Rabbit

2009-02-25T13:18:00.000-08:00

Carryout Kids

2009-02-23T17:59:00.000-08:00

Every everyday
you and I fight about
our insignificant woes
like two children on a
swingset

You come out of the bathroom
to remind me
of the view outside the window
and thank god we have it
but all I see is
highrisers

'fight about I and
you about you
: there is no we
just you and I

Every morning
smoking cigarettes
drinking coffee
dancing on our fingertips
in apprehension
for someone to walk in the door.

Every balcony so full of stuff
the days unceasing
like veins running into endless infinity

When time stops
I sit by the window
waiting for the sky to fall out of the sky
sometimes days will pass before
we really wake up

Every light goes on
opposite the window
I can see
Every car that goes by
or cigarette smoked
I can count

Every note you pluck
seems minor
when the power is off
and vulgar
when the lights come on

Everything is deceptively simple when
words betray reality
when you and I talk
of the damn weather

A swingset going back and forth
anywhere
me and you and the whole world of us

and if somewhere a machine has been made
to make the world a better place,
then maybe, maybe

roman gypsy