Monday, June 1

Latest Regret #1345.4A: Not Learning Lindy Hop

I love swing dancing. East coast swing dancing, let me clarify. Westies out there will be horrified if I don't specify. They are serious. Like gang serious. 

But the thing is, like working out, me going dancing doesn't happen enough. Every so often on wednesday or saturday when dancing is nigh in Dallas, (which it is yearly-ask me! We'll go as per your impetus), I finally get myself on the dance floor, provided there are people there with me (at least one, and not even a girl). I love it! And I dream to learn more.

I want a great pair of shoes so I can finally do the Lindy hop! It's such a fast, exuberant dance that can really get crazy! If you haven't seen it, get on that: 



Not sped up a all either. Those dancers are legit. I have seen this. 

So I'll be able to do that. One day. That's the dream. 
I can dance that fast in my heart, I just need someone to learn with!
Doesn't it just look amazing? 

Sons of Hermann Hall, every wednesday 5$ 
and Sammon Arts Center, every saturday 7$! Better than a movie, I swear.

Sunday, May 31

Simmer Time

So I've been playing around with cooking lately. It being summer I have more time on my hands! As per my limited budget, there aren't many options by way of dinner. It's usually chicken and something made of carbohydrates, like pasta or rice, or it's cereal or yogurt or even a sandwich! Thrills. 

I love to cook but it's just so freakin expensive. Luckily I have a pretty good selection of herbs and chicken is a versatile bird, you know? Lately I've been getting risky. I mean, even if it's terrible, I'm still the only one eating it, so no one has to suffer but me. I think it's an honor code or something. If you cook it, you eat it, you know?

So last night was my most successful experiment! It could have been awful. I decided to make some chicken and rice and I wanted a glaze of honey with something special in it. Here's my recipe! You can try it.

chicken breast sauteed in olive oil and garlic, then simmered for 15 minutes in a mixture of
honey, water, a bit more olive oil, cinnamon, pepper, and curry powder. 

I served it over jasmine rice. delicious. though it still needs something else, maybe some red pepper or something to give it some zing.

Thursday, May 14

Waiting on the Rain

This morning, being home, I decided, as I often do, to work and read out in my backyard. I had to hurry and make it out before it started raining because I wanted to get to my seat under our pavilion. It was so exciting! I had to gather my books and supplies and scamper out there before the drops started to fall, and for some reason I felt like a little kid again. Sadly, it only sprinkled for about 5 minutes, but Texas is like that. It fools you into thinking it's going to do one thing when it does a completely different thing. I kinda like that, though. Regardless, I'm sitting under my pavilion in the sun. 

But this is similar to many things in life I think. We see an opportunity and make a decision about it. We get excited and prepared to experience that opportunity, run outside, arms full of hope, ready to accept it full on and with an open heart, and bam! It's something completely different entirely, something you did not ever see coming! It may be worse, it may be better than before-but either way it's completely different and completely disappointing for a bit. It kinda knocks the wind out of your sails, you know? But at this point, I think you have two choices. Important ones. 

One: You decide to hold resentment against that changed opportunity and grow jaded about taking chances on similar opportunities ever again. You keep your hope and your heart to yourself and wait for the chance to use them only on your terms and not on the terms of an unknown situation. In other words, you go inside and watch through the window, hating the sun and resenting the rain for not meeting you when you wanted it to. 

or 

Two: You accept the difference and see what you can do with the new set of circumstances using the things you brought with you, your heart and your hopes. You sit under the pavilion anyway, though it's in the sun and not the rain. You wanted the rain, you got the sun, but if you wait, maybe the rain will come again. 

I decided to wait in the sun. It's much better this way, I'd say.

Thursday, April 30

Disney One Liners

Let's take a look at Disney's latest films. Simplicity seems to be the idea prevailing: "Earth" ,"Oceans",  "Up". 

One word, big movie. Kinda brilliant. I like it, anyway. Though I do think it's a bit presumptuous of Disney to adopt the word "Earth" for their movie, as if they are trying to sum up "Earth" within the frame of one tiny movie that follows the lives of three different species of animals around the whole planet to stand for all creatures great and small. This, I suppose, asks a question about the meaning of movies to us folks. How much does a movie about something shape our perception of that real life thing? Do we think Planet Earth can be summed up in "Earth"? Probably not. But it just seems like now that word is owned by Disney and their 2-hour interpretation of it, do you know what I mean? Some of that word's power is held within Disney's movie now. How much of our perception of Vietnam is shaped by movies, of warfare, of romance, of what it is to die, anything? This may be an old question but an interesting one. 

Thanks Walt. 

A Paltry Showing

For anyone interested in 19 pictures I've taken, have a look!

I'm working on centralizing all of my photos from the different cameras/computers they sit on. They're really all over the place. More will come! But enjoy this little snippet of fun, mostly from my schooling in Taos, NM last summer.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryknoe/

Friday, January 30

Stuck on Me

I'm running against a bit of a wall, trying to get some breakthrough in idea generation. Mostly it's a wall of my own construction: I haven't tried hard enough and thinking what doesn't come easily isn't worth it, at least not yet. This is false! And since when has any really good idea that needed no editing or reevaluating just popped right into your head without any work/preparation/effort?
Not to say work/preparation/effort are at 0% at all. No, I'd say they're at 74-76.5% out of 100%. But you know, you just stop after the ideas trickle and cease and you just want to sit around for days instead of actually working? Maybe you'll toss the problem a couple minutes of thought but nothing too concentrated-even though the deadline looms agonizingly close and huge! What's up with this habit of work? Is it common? It certainly isn't welcome.

But check out this Russian and Brazilian graffiti I found recently as part of my researches! I loved it. And to imagine living near this just makes me smile. Enjoy work I certainly didn't do but respect! Civil disobedience can be so rewarding sometimes.



isn't it wonderful how Pemuky (the artist) used the moss and cracks and local foliage to make this work so integrated into its surrounding?!!

Check out more at this fantastic archive: www.graffiti.org

Wednesday, January 28

Back in the Biz-United States of Disunity

It's time to get back at it, being creative and thoughtful. Not that these things ever cease. But to be so publicly? A different matter entirely!


Here's something I've been thinking about.

I've been thinking about how un-unified we are as a people. How afraid we are of true community-true reliance and trust in others, which, in fact, is the way we were meant to live I think! Consider this bit of a stream of a conciousness entry I've written about this:

"
We, as a people, and I’m talking mostly to the largely Anglo and non-recently-emigrated minorities who call themselves Americans, are taught that success and good living is achieved alone. Let me rephrase this, that to be a successful American is to pull your own self up by your bootstraps and make something of yourself-to not depend on anybody else for anything but to use people for what they give to you, not for the community that is possible. To have a woman be your wife to you, to have your grocer give you goods, to have your doctor give you medicine. But you are your own person who has chosen to accept these things and you are an island, just like Donne liked to say. You are alone and that’s truly the best way to be. The American way, in fact. To be independent
"


I'm thinking about writing a play about this. There's more to these thoughts, as well. Mostly about what the hope is, not the criticisms, what life should be about. Consider this as well:

"

LET ME POSIT SOMETHING NEW: DON’T LIVE SO YOU CAN MAKE MONEY AND THUS COUNT YOURSELF SUCCESSFUL. Not just an anti-materialism rant or something or some trite summary that “true wealth is in friends” or “the heart” or in “non-monetary things, etc. etc“. BUT that we, as Americans, have been lied to about the meaning of success and sadly have built our society around that meaning, which is to say, we’ve built our society around the structure of hard-working individual people working hard and making money and spinning the wheels of capitalism round and round thinking that that is the only true purpose in life AND THAT by fulfilling this American freedom of individual success, we can be ANYTHING WE WANT and eventually, if we work hard enough, be able to afford WHATEVER WE WANT which will make us feel happy. BUT this isn’t true. It is simply NOT TRUE. Not everyone can have all that much money, most people won’t get to work a job all that close to what they truly enjoy doing, most everyone will struggle and toil to make ends meat for years and years, and the American dream just isn’t possible for a large amount of Americans. But here’s the deal. Instead of pointing fingers and blaming the founding fathers or Ronald Reagan or Adam Smith or Karl Marx or whomever for creating or challenging and thus renewing with vigor this, our fair country’s sorely dissatisfying capitalistic success, instead of getting angry for being duped or feeling hopeless because you’ll never get that raise or that yacht or that house, instead of all that negativity and bitterness and blame and self-loathing, FORGET ABOUT THE MONEY. Because guess what, IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. You don’t believe me? Walk out into the street and get hit by a car. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. Because it isn’t. What is it about? It’s about brevity. It’s about preciousness, immediacy, present-tense, look-up-at-the-sky-and-breathe-in-the-free-beautiful-air-all-around-you-ness.It’s about the fact that having enough fiat money sitting in a bank vault just doesn’t make you feel any better deep deep deep deep down where the human in you lives on, yelling at your heart and your brain all day long that it all just isn‘t enough.
"

What do you think?

IDENTITY

Let me tell you about myself in an attempt for you to know me better. In an attempt to pull back the curtains and look inside my being to k...