Welcome to

the land of bicycles. Never mind the coming snows, never mind that the temperatures will drop and drop down. Do not attend to any of that. You are in the land of bicycles.

Walk down the street at night, you'll see two bicyclists zipping towards you. They politely line up and move to your left, their right.

Head over to the supermarket, with wife and daughter. Silent as can be they keep coming from behind you, riders on bicycles. You only hear them when, again, they politely pass you. This time treading on grass.

You are in the land of the bicycles. How long, how long till you have one too?

Harvest Moon

They had walked out to the grocery store to get a few snacks for the evening. Somehow it was dark by them time they ended up leaving the store. On their walk back she suddenly exclaimed "Oh, look!" and he looked and saw what she was pointing at. It was the moon hanging just above the trees, huge and orange, yet not quite full. Next night would probably be full moon. They decided they'd repeat their walk to catch the full harvest moon.

The next night they headed out at about the same time, walked towards the grocery store and then past it for a way. They looked back occasionally, but the moon wasn't there, wasn't rising in the expected spot. It wasn't anywhere else in the cloudless sky, and they still hadn't found it when they reached home.

"I know," she said, "lets go drive out into the country. Maybe we'll be able to see the moon out there."

He agreed so they got in the car, and drove out of town, on the same road leading past the grocery store. They took random turns onto smaller roads to try to get as far out into nothingness as possible. They looked up and around, but every time they failed to spy the moon.

They laughed about it and kept driving out further and further. As they grew tired they found themselves on a small rough empty road, surrounded by an empty barren field. They they drove on, becoming so tired that they hardly looked for the moon at all now, no longer looked at where they were going, and the small road had given way to a gravelly surface.

Suddenly they were driving up a steep hill, only rocks around them, the black sky somehow vivid. As they came up over the crest the view of the sky opened up, and they finally saw it in the night sky. [Not the moon, but something much larger, all green and blue. The earth itself.]

News item from the year 2053

Scientist report that they have developed a new form of light. Whereas ordinary light consists of photons, the new light is made up of phentons. Humans are unable to distinguish phenton from photon light. However, phenton light accelerates plant growth. According to Dr. Mao Frieder of Caltech, bamboo exposed to phenton light grows one inch every two minutes, a growth rate visible to the human eye.

Blog Envy

There is always room for new neuroses, new mental diseases.

The past

gets swept away, but lingers nonetheless in memory.

Do you (whoever you are) imagine your distant future? Do you have visions, however fleeting, of places you might like to go? Perhaps a boat trip never taken yet, but maybe one day. A mostly abandoned carnival town somewhere, with a long wide main street?

Religion

You'd never guess it from the way I write this blog, but I'd say that my true religion is 'Strunk & White'-ian.

Bergman

In some of those older Ingmar Berman movies the movie begins at some beach house, though a scanadanavian beach house, and people are pushing a boat back in from the water. Well, that it probably just how one of his movies begin, but lots of them seem to have coastal scenes. That movie scene may be the inspiration for my vision of launching a canoe into Lake Huron.

Return of the Canadian

Heading back now, and its years later. Everything is different, but it is still heading back.

Eating Eight by Lars Paul Linden

I am reading "Eating Eight" by Lars Paul Linden. The book made its way to me.

It is a slim book. It is a sci fi story written by someone who cares about rock concerts, comic books, and maybe spray painting. I have mixed feelings about it, but it yields few hits on Google, and that alone made me decide to mention it here. But reading it seems to awaken something in me. Also, on Amazon some copy is selling for $187 or some absurd amount.

And now back to the house.

The dominant feeling

What is the dominant feeling of childhood? or what was the dominant feeling of your childhood? Did some emotion occur more than others? Or was there some emotion that occured perhaps rarely, but now occurs much less or ever never?

I don't want to romanticize childhood, but I'm guessing that the feeling of wonder often dominates childhood. That feeling when you look at something, and it mystefies you, and you are somehow curious about it, and as if there is an explanation (not something technical) and knowing it matters or would be better.

Depth

For a while at Boston College, towards the end, I asked everyone I knew to tell me what they thought depth is. Not the depth of physical things, such as lakes, and closets, but the depth of people or maybe music or books. It was a difficult question, and no one ever seemed really confident with their answer, confident that they knew.

The rabbit garden

Rabbit ears grow straight up from the soil.

Ya

its true. Memory hasn't been haunting me lately. Could have something to do with so much happening recently. Could be.

Before I worked

in the old age home I might have been surprised at the prospect of memory decreasing with age. But now I wonder, how could it be otherwise? The older we get, the more that happens, the more to remember, the more that is forgotten. Who could remember all the events of a life of 80 years.

yes, yes, there is more to it than that (short term memory goes as well, and those old people always seem to remember the far far past) but still, too much happens in a life for memory to be able to remember it all.

A friend writes

Our names are so similar. I always
think of the word "affinity"
whenever I consider the mystery
of the similarities of our names.

My discovery on the banks of the river hackensack

The reeds sprawled across the ground lay in patterened placement, mimicking motion of water or wind. As I paced back and forth they broke beneath my feet and became disarrayed, the mud below appearing.

This in New Jersey?

Wish of paper transmission

Dear ________, ___.
Nice to meet you.
I am Kyushu University graduate school Human environmental educational
institution in Japan
Psychology course Master one year.
I am doing research on the theory of mind now at the graduate school.
That I am now the most interested is whether change is looked at by tasks
parformance by giving the character characteristic to the characters of a
false belief tasks.
Your thesis was found when the reference about that was looked for.
May I ask you a favor? have then, your paper "Do children attribute false
beliefs by attending to characteristic features?" sent by the attached
file -- is there nothing?
Although an impolite thing is thought by sudden mail, I am waiting for a
pleasant reply.
Sincerely.

The bridge on the river hackensack

Well she done did it, there, taking that nice photo.

Wild Laver

Behold the wild laver. I do not know what it is, but just looking at the label raises in me a vague feeling that I may have to go on an expedition myself, to retrieve the wild laver, searching it out in its natural and isolated habitat, perhaps somewhere in the further reaches of northeastern asia.

Two things my father warned me about

1. Reliance on the color black in painting
2. Reliance on drums in music