Elemental

White water is elemental, primal, compelling. I can stand beside a river rushing between the crowded confines of a rocky canyon for hours. I’m entranced. Bewitched by the roar. Pushed. Held captive in the sweep and thunder.
Cities need rocky cascades of white water. We should invent them in cities. In every park, every hurried downtown [...]

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Embroidered

I sat behind this man at a session at SXSW Interactive. The  work on his embroidered shirt was awe inspiring. Don’t know if you’ve every tried to do embroidery, but I consider it blinding, bloody to the fingertips, boring, and a pain in the neck. In other words, I’ve done just enough of it to [...]

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Milk

Milk is good, but soy milk is good too. Soy milk is more expensive however. Why? How does soy milk stack up to cow’s milk in environmental terms? Is one less damaging to the earth to grow and harvest and process?
I could be swayed to buy either one, if I knew which one was more [...]

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Sleep

Real life is too hard.
Too many thoughts,
Demands, needs, issues
That lead to a black hole
Of horror and fear.
Better to sleep
To nod into the
Unconscious where no
Thinking is needed
And colors are bright.
Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “sleep.”

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Grasp Bird’s Tail

This weekend I’ll be doing Tai Chi and Qigong up in the tall pines at Jemez Springs. I am very excited about it. Just getting up in the hills is always a good thing for the soul, and two solid days of head clearing Tai Chi has to be good for the temperment. The photo [...]

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Culture Changes

Nobody said, let’s do this. Nobody announced a change. But there was a change so large it was noticable. I’m talking about the change at SXSW Interactive, where for years the audience was marked by a sea of computers. This year there were computers, but fewer. People were using smart phones instead. Carrying less, blogging [...]

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The meme

The meme is one of those Internet chain letter, forward to 10 friends, kinds of things. Tell 25 facts about yourself and pass it on. That’s a  meme. I’m the meme killer. I am a curmudgeon; memes feel like a time eater to a person with not much time to spare. When I get one, [...]

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Radio stations

When I’m in Austin I listen to either the public radio station at KUT or the alternative themed local station KGSR. Both play local music, an eclectic mix of music, and have real DJs who live and work in Austin. In one set, you might hear Willie Nelson, B.B. King,  Lucinda Williams, U2, Stevie Ray [...]

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Jam for Breakfast

Blueberry jam from France was on the menu at Rachel’s place this morning. It went well with the toasted bread from Whole Foods and the European style coffee. She said that jam in France has more fruit and less sugar than the jam that is shipped to the U.S. We apparently like it sweet here [...]

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Party

The party in Austin last weekend and ongoing through the week is huge, complex, exhausting, and often loud. Yet I keep going back for more. This year the Interactive part of the party, which is the part I attend, included so many thousands of people wandering hallways, meeting rooms, sidewalks, restaurants and bars that it’s [...]

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