The Midweek Jibe - Wk: 27 '06

We (San Francisco Bay Area) just recently concluded the last of three "Spare The Air" days. This is when motorists are encouraged to leave their cars at home and use public transportation. All (well, most) of the transportation modes were free (e.g. MUNI, BART, Ferries, etc). Yes, free. Of course the various agencies can't afford to do this but three days a year and we've just used up our allotment. I haven't seen any of the air quality statistics, but there was a noticeable decrease in the number of cars whizzing about.

Is this a good thing? Well, yes for all the obvious reasons, and also no. No, because all the people -- the ones I see riding solo in huge tank-size vehicles; the ones I see driving and talking on cells; the ones I feel are the major contributors to air, noise, and traffic pollution -- they were all on public transportation. I use public transpiration, I've always used public transpiration. As I was pushing my way onto crowded buses and jockeying for seats on BART, all I could think was, "Why don't all these people just get back in their cars!"

Me And The Muse

I love to do it myself. In fact, I'd rather "figure it out" myself than have someone show me how. This sometimes means needlessly "re-inventing the wheel", but in the end, I have much more of a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes, most times, my solution is unorthodox, but that's what makes [it] uniquely mine.

When I have a problem or I'm working on a project, and I hit a snag and can't come up with a solution, I'll stick with it as long as there's another option or some other possible approach. It's when I run out of options and still haven't "cracked it", that I resign in defeat ...at least temporarily.

Then, when I wake up the following day, the answer is there. It's as if my brain were working on the problem while I was asleep. Or perhaps, it's just that being mired neck-deep in the situation, I failed to "see the forest for the trees", and distancing myself allows me to approach it from a new perspective. In any event, I open my eyes, yawn, focus on the day, recall the project, and BAM! "Why didn't I think of that before? It's so obvious!"

Problem is that I have to address this right away. But, there's the hour it takes me to shower, and then the 15 minutes to brush my teeth, and then make the bed, wash last nights dishes, and oh, yes, there's no food in the house; I need to go to the grocers, and there's always laundry to do, and all kinds of other stuff that should be addressed. But I'm too excited and I can't put it on hold. I jump right outta bed, pausing only to make a pot of tea and perhaps answer nature's call, and dive head first into my project. "I'll just get this started, and then I'll do that other stuff." Problem is, when I finally reach that stopping point, it's three or four in the afternoon, and I'm still in night dress, unwashed, unkempt, and starting to feel the pangs of hunger.

This happens often enough to be problematic, so I say, I'll not answer the muse, until I've dealt with responsibilities and obligations. But the muse is such a nudge, right there, whispering in my ear, "...now if you try this, that will make it turn out like that ...and with a slight adjustment to this ....." End result, a lot of those other things don't get done.

For a very long time, I've been trying to adopt a more "responsible" approach to dealing with both my muse and life's other callings. But this collaboration [with her] is what I'm all about. Creating, (no matter what the subject matter), has always been at the very core of my "raison d'être". I need to produce ...not just crank out product, but that expession resulting from the divine spark of inspiration. I'll go as far as to say that this is one of the most important aspect of my being. The importance of "my ability to express myself through my own devices" is, for me, right up there with oxygen.

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You hear the expression "my muse" quite often. Just who is (are) the muse(s) anyway. [They] were the Greek goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences. The Muses were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. Usually there is mention of nine muses: Clio (history), Euterpe (music, lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy, pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy) Terpsichore (dancing and song), Erato (lyric and love poetry), Urania (astronomy), Calliope (epic poetry), and Polymnia -- aka. Polyhymnia (heroic hymns).

	The Muses: Clio, Euterpe and Thalia by Eustache Le Sueur
	The Muses: Melpomene, Erato and Polymnia by Eustache Le Sueur
	The Muse: Terpsichore by Eustache Le Sueur
	The Muses: Urania and Calliope by Simon Vouet

Quote of the Week: “O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention."

The Midweek Jibe - Wk: 26 '06

When I was very young, money was tight, so to bring in extra income, Mom would take in laundry ...specifically shirts. Now everyone knows a hand laundered shirt is far superior to that of any laundry. As a result, [she] had much more business than she could handle ...so she called out the troops (i.e. me). Consequently, at a very young age, I learned how to iron a shirt ...to perfection. In addition to spoiling me in favor of hand laundered shirts, I ended up hating ironing.

When I became an adult, and the expense of "sending my shirts out" was not an issue, I did so despite my dissatisfaction with the quality of the work. I hated ironing more. Even when I tried a "French" laundry, (where the shirts are washed by machine but ironed by hand), that didn't work out either. The cost was prohibitive and the quality of the work was not that much better.

Then recently, my local "Chinese" laundry raised its prices yet again, and it's gotten to the point were my unwillingness to go along with this "inflation" has finally out-weighed my dislike of ironing. So I'm back to doing my own shirts. The good thing in this is that now I finally get to have my shirts done right.

My Adopted Family

Okay Lillie, you asked...

First off, let me say, I was not adopted. I was conceived, born and reared in the regular fashion. I had no siblings ...well actually I did have (would've had) a sister, but she died as an infant, and long before I was born.

My Dad died when I was very, very young, so I don't really remember him ...just from photos and stories. My Mom raised me, but it was hardly a single parent situation. All of my aunts and uncles lived in close (too close) proximity, so it was one large extended family. Despite this closeness in physical proximity, there was very little cohesion ...lots of bad blood among the various factions. So, no, we weren't very "close". For me, it was me and my Mom and then, all the rest of 'em.

There was this girl, we'll call her "Sara". Sara was not a "girlfriend" but a very good friend, a school mate that I met in middle school (7th or 8th grade). We became fast friends and spent a lot of time together. She came from one of those families that you see in the Norman Rockwell paintings ...Mom, Dad, three daughters, nice house, white picket fence, the who nine yards. For myself, coming from a very dysfunctional family and a very different environment, it was a pleasure to associate with "normal people". Of course I would later realize that neither her family nor any other I've encountered actually fits into that "normal" mold. ...that in retrospect, my own family wasn't all that dysfunctional, just a little fucked-up as are many (if not most).

But at the time, it was a sheer pleasure to be in a loving environment where there was no yelling and screaming, where the family members actually seemed to enjoy life and the company of one another. (Sure, there was "stuff" going on, but that's their laundry and inappropriate for me to air).

The oddest thing is, I bonded ...really bonded... with them all. And they with me. I was embraced to such an extent that it was a bit overwhelming. My presence was requested, no, required at all family functions and I began to feel very much a part of that family.

Mrs. "Smith" often referred to me as the son she never had. Mr. "Smith" and I got along famously. I even had my assigned chores. Not weekly stuff like taking out the garbage, but whenever the house needed painting or the roof gutters need cleaning, or the seasonal exchanging of the storm and screens doors, it was me and Mr. "Smith". When Mr. Smith died, I was there to do all that kind of stuff. Sara and I were the same age, so her older sisters became my older sisters, and I had with them the same sibling dynamic as she.

Now that we're all much older, Sara and her sisters all have families of their own, but I don't feel like an "uncle" to their respective children. All that happened after I'd moved to the West Coast. I've never actually met any of their children, although I have spoken to a few of them over the phone. However we're all still closely tethered. In fact, when any of my [biological] aunts, uncles, or cousins, want to inquire about me, they ask Sara or Mrs. "Smith" ...which reminds me, I owe her a call. We haven't spoken in a couple weeks.

On closing this post, which may have painted the picture of my having abandoned my Mom for another family, I l'd like to point out that 1) my Mom was both well acquainted with and friends with the "Smiths", 2) my mon had a good relationship with [her] brothers and sisters, it was I who didn't really embrace them as "family" ...nor they me, and 3) my Mom and I were very close and spent lots of quality time together, but she was not a stay-at-home Mom, especially in the early years when most of her time and energy went into doing those things a single parent does to provide for family.

Quote of the Week: “All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

The Midweek Jibe - Wk: 25 '06

This is a video that I saw on Glora-Jean's blob. (She saw it on Phil's blog ...you know how these things get around.) This particular one resonates with me since I have a special fondness for scenarios revolving around time, the concept of time, time manipulation, the results of screwing with time, etc. This feature is in the same vein as "Slipstream", "Clockstoppers", "The Butterfly Effect", "Timecop", "The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything", and the slow second from "Trancers". It's 8:11 minutes long, but well worth the watch ...I think.

Step Right Up

This post is about the hustle we call commerce.

It's great to find what you want at a good price. It's also understandable to delay the purchase until the item is on sale. But, is a bargain a bargain if the item is something you could afford but wouldn't have purchased had it not been on sale.

Credit is an intensely marketed commodity despite the fact that so many don't handle it well. For an item like a home, credit is [usually] a necessity. However, for so many, credit is a simple fact of life. Oscar Wilde said, "Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination". Sellers of large ticket items ...that item you know you can't afford ...move their goods by stimulating the imaginations of the prospective buyers. The issuers of the needed credit rely on convincing people that the inability to afford something need not be a deterrent in possessing it. P T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." Many sellers seem to rely on this statement to be factual.

Aggressive advertising in its insidiousness has reached the point of almost being criminal. It has permeated every form of communication. Even people themselves have become walking billboards for designer goods. With all the junk advertising you throw away, you think, "Nobody wants this, why do they do it?" Well, actually, there are enough sales generated from all that "junk" to warrant its expense and continuity.

And then if it's not about what you buy, it's about how much of it you buy. All I wanted was roll of paper towels. But no, I had to buy a pack of 8. And bathroom tissue now comes in a 12-pack. I'm not talking about a warehouse shopping club, but my local Safeway. They've dispensed with any small sizes in favor of economy bargain-priced sizes. And to avail yourself of any sales, you have to buy two ...buy one get one free. Why can't they just sell it at half price. I know it's to their benefit to sell you two instead of one, but what if I don't need two 12-packs of bathroom tissue. So just get the one, you say. Well, my frugality won't allow that.

And then there's the situation where the giant size [of relish], much more than I can use, is less expensive than the size I actually want. So do I buy the larger size and throw the excess away? That's wasting food, and all through my childhood I heard ad nauseam, "There are people starving in the world and you're wasting food", so no, I couldn't do that. Instead, I buy the size I need ...and gripe [to myself] about having paid more for it than I had to.

In his song, "Step Right Up", Tom Waits does a send up of the huckster by recalling every line you've every heard from some shady character trying to sell his bill of goods. At the very end, he utilizes the famous W. C. Fields line, "Get away from me kid, you bother me." The actual lyrics can be viewed here

Quote of the Week: “Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny."

The Midweek Jibe - Wk: 24 '06

While watching the film "Sideways" (a film that revolved around the appreciation of fine wines), there was a bit of dialog that went like this ...I'm paraphrasing here:

1st guy: Open that bottle of wine.
2nd guy: What is it?
1st guy: It's a Pinot Noir.
2nd guy: How can it be a Pinot Noir, it's not red?
1st guy: It's the skin that makes it red; without the skin, it's white.

This piqued my interest since I luuuuuuuvvvvvvv pinot noir. I went to my local wine shop, called other shops around the city, and searched all over the web. Nobody had ever seen or heard of a "white" pinot noir ...although they all conceded that one could possibly exist.

Then, on my last visit to the wine shop, Mike, the clerk, says, "Hey, I watched that movie, Sideways. Guess what? They were talking about sparkling wine."

With that, he shows me a bottle of blanc de noir, which is a common enough sparkling wine made from the pinot noir grape -- without the skin. It was a relief to finally have the answer to that puzzle.

I would've bought the wine ...just for the curiosity of it... except I don't particularly care for sparkling wines. I say that I've never really "liked" sparking wines, but then, I've never had a top shelf champagne, so I'm leaving the final judgment on that open until I've sampled the likes of a Dom Perignon or a Cristal.

Maybe I'll even try a [reasonably priced] bottle of this blanc de noir.

Wax On, Wax Off *

No, this is not a post about the removal of hair. (Although, hair is always an interesting topic ...why some have it and some don't ...why we love it in some places and curse it in others ...why some is black, some brown, some blonde, some red ...I'm partial to redheads myself. But that's all for another post, perhaps.) This post is about repetition.

Repetition and practice have always been successful tools used in acquiring command of various skills. Even if you possess innate talent in a particular area, repetition and practice are necessary to refine and hone that gift.

When an activity or task require physical action, repetition trains the muscles, imbues them with the memory of the action, so that when called upon, they perform almost without being consciously activated.

Musicians (or at least the few that I know) are trained through hours and hours of practice to master their technique. But then when they play, they're instructed to forget about "trying" and just feel the music. The technique, the dexterity, the agility, the keyboard acumen ...will all be there as a result of physical memory and need not be a conscious endeavor.

An exercise used to increase keyboard speed is to practice typing as fast as you can with no regard for accuracy. After doing this for awhile, slow down just enough to assure accuracy. You'll find that you're actually typing faster than before.

Inspiration and passion count for a lot, but sometimes, it's just a matter of putting your ass in the seat and doing it ...and not using the absence of "the muse" as an excuse. George Sand ...I believe it was she ...had a practice of writing twenty pages a day, whether she was inspired of not, whether the words came effortlessly or not, whether the result was brilliant or not. Note that some situations will require the complete opposite action (i.e. getting up off your ass).

This also seems to work for the mind. There's a reading program that works on this same principle. You [train] the eyes to read over copy as fast as you can with no regard for comprehension. Then when you slow the process down enough to understanding what you're reading, you'll find you're reading speed has increased significantly ...or at least that's how the product promotes itself.

Repetition and practice are also aids in developing desirable habits. I was recently made aware of a concept that by repeating something thirty consecutive times, over thirty consecutive days, it becomes a habit. There are a few things I'd like to "get into the habit" of doing ..things that always involve a lot of procrastination if they get done at all. I do plan to put this theory to the test. Unfortunately this can't be applied to things like laundry and vacuuming, because you don't ...wouldn't want to ...do them everyday.

* For those who aren't familiar with the reference, this term comes from the movie "Karate Kid" in which the trainer assigned certain chores to the student. One such chore was waxing the car ...applying the wax in one specific motion, removing it with another (opposite) motion. After a lot of car waxing, the student's muscles had inadvertently acquired the memory of these motions which manifested (in his karate training) as automatic, involuntary, reflexive reactions. I guess you had to see the movie.

Quote of the Week: "I'm such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own."