Hostel Invasion : a night of art downtown in San Diego

Hostelling International Downtown San Diego




Art is like a greater body of water in which many creatures immerse.
http://www.sandiegohostels.org/hosteltakeover

Art's journey is not complete until it goes from being envisioned to being made to being seen!




A new piece of art is made by your observations! In life, what sometimes seems indistinct grey areas, when looked at in close detail, resolves into fine lines and black and white clarity.




I feel it all working again...I had to say yes to the book I had wanted most to write with the conflict I most didn't want to exist...because now I see the end in sight...

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Super Moms-to-Be: a Geek Nativity Skit!!!

Scene: Edith Wharton Maternity Wing

A woman in a hospital gown lies back under covers, looking miserable, as a doctor examines her charts. Her belly is apparently great with child. There are two beds present, unless you can wheel a gurney in. The woman also has a towel on her lap.)

DR.: Mrs. Stichards, we’ve detected a heart beat for you baby.

RUE STICHARDS: How is she?

DR: Well, we can’t get a sonogram of her position if you keep turning your womb invisible.

RUE: I’ll try to cooperate. This intern came in earlier and accidentally saw everything!

DR: Just relax.

RUE: I thought someone said “song-o-gram” and if I have to hear the baby’s Uncle Benjy belt out ‘Be My Baby’ again, I’m going to hide behind an invisible force field! (she throws up her hands in frustration)

DR: I’m sure if you can deal with the face of Doom, Mrs. Stichards, you can deal with such a natural procedure. The nurse will see you shortly, if you don’t turn invisible again.
(a gloved hand comes into the scene, on a long poll, as the doctor speaks)

DR: Have you noticed any flares?
RUE: If there’s a flare, I’m not answering it, I’m busy giving birth!

DR: If you’d like, perhaps Dr. Stichards could lend a bit of support.
(the gloved hand pats her)

RUE: OH, here he is, now! (pats the hand)
You’re such a fantastic hubby, darling.
(hand retracts back off stage)

DR.: Perhaps a bit of company will help. Another patient had a private room, but with the emergency patient from Crouton, we were pressed for space. The princess was kind enough to offer her room. It will only be for a little bit…

RUE: If I decide I don’t want company, she won’t even notice me here.
(Another woman is helped in carefully, to take the space next to Rue. She has a nice head piece and braids, if possible. She is huffing and puffing with an enormous belly.)

IMA: Oh, the force is strong with my bladder.
(she sighs, puts out her hand. The doctor leaves.)
IMA: Ima Dollah.

RUE: You’re a dollar?

IMA: I’m a princess, I don’t come cheap! Princess Ima Dollah.

RUE: Rue Stichards, of the Fantabulous Four.

IMA: Hope your delivery’s going more smoothly than mine.
(she puts her hand over her belly)
They admitted me for preeclampsia, but it turned out I just had a high midi-chlorian count.

RUE: Looks like twins!

IMA: Wow, it’s like you can see right through me!

RUE: I can! You want to see, too?
(she waves her hand beside the princess’s belly; Ima looks down her gown with a joyous look.)

IMA: Oh, would you look at that? Hel-lo, little Luke! Hel-Lo, little Leia!

RUE: I’m having a girl this time, too. Pretty neat that you have them both at once!

IMA: Yes, I was surprised to have twins, but it was bound to happen.

RUE: Cosmic destiny?

IMA: My thyroid medicine, actually. Increases the egg count.

RUE: Clomid?

IMA: Oh, heavens, no, I didn’t clone it, I had them the old fashioned way.

RUE: I see! The father must be really excited.

IMA: I’m starting to think he’s not into children much. Maybe the worse baby sitter in the galaxy. We’ve not been getting on so well. In fact I didn’t know him so well at all!

RUE: My goodness! I hope he didn’t use force?

IMA: Oh, he has his dark side, for sure. Awfully good with his light saber.
RUE: A bad boy, huh?

IMA: He uses the Force, but we conceived in a much happier time.
And you?

RUE: It’s by my husband. He got me right in the Negative Zone!
IMA: Oo-hoo, sounds like fun!

RUE: (batting her eyes demurely) Can’t say it was ALL negative.
If I was more than five centimeters dilated, I’d just make a little force field slide for her to zip on out my cooch.

IMA: I hope these two will be so cooperative. Not every baby does it by the book! Too bad they haven’t all read the book.
RUE: Knowing my baby, she just may have already read the book. She may come out with a degree.
But it won’t be long until I have Valeria.

IMA: Ooo, (sucks in air through teeth) malaria’s not much fun at all! I really despise mosquitoes.

RUE: At least I am excited about the baby now. It was a happy little accident when we conceived.

IMA: Did you use a rubber?

RUE: OH, my husband’s entirely rubber. (she peaks under her gown.) In fact, I may be the only patient in the maternity ward whose husband ALSO has stretch marks.

(The patient from Crouton, also great with child, enters the room. This could be a guy :-D)

EL EL BEAN EL: Hello, ladies! I just wanted to come thank you, princess, for letting me use your private room. Everything was just blowing up at home!

IMA: We expectant mothers have to stick together!
RUE: I know what you mean! Sometimes I don’t know if I’m coming or going!

IMA: Me, too! Prequel or sequel? I can’t keep anything straight anymore.

EL EL BEAN EL: I’m El El Bean-El. I’m very excited for you ladies.

IMA: Ima Dollah.

RUE: Rue Stichards.

BEAN EL: At least at this stage I still have some of the decision making! My husband’s such a control freak!

IMA: OH, my Anny’s the worst control freak!

RUE: Mine treats me like an invisible woman.

BEAN EL: Well, congratulations to you and Annie. I think more gay couples should use in vitro! Too bad that I have to give mine up for adoption. I hope he finds a nice couple.

IMA, RUE: awww, that’s sad!

BEAN EL: Well, when I say things are blowing up at home, I don’t mean the economy’s improving.

IMA: Oh, no! Well, at least maybe my little twins won’t have to see anything so drastic. I would hate for little Leia to see her home planet blown up, right before her eyes!

RUE: (pats her) I wouldn’t worry myself about such things, hun. I’m sure she’ll be a daddy’s girl!

BEAN EL: I do have the sweetest little rocket picked out for Kal. It’s already in the NICU.

IMA, RUE: Awww, how sweet!

BEAN EL: at least my husband’s working on our rocket, too. I told him he needed to have it ready last Tuesday but he just mumbled something about being busy at the Phantom Zone.

IMA: Who’s the godfather?

BEAN EL: Oh, my husband’s already the Godfather.
RUE: Must be a Crouton custom. Well, here! I have this towel made of unstable molecules. Maybe you can tuck it in and your baby can use it as a cape or something when he gets older.

BEAN EL (takes the towel): I’ve got to get back to my bed. I feel him kicking…ohhh!!! (she leans backward and rushes out the door, stomach first)

RUE: I’m sure her little one will grow up to be a real man of steel!

IMA: That’s what happened to my man. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. He’s a real metal head.

RUE: Where IS he, may I ask?

IMA: Probably somewhere getting baked with his teacher. Oh! I feel a contraction!

(Doctor returns) DR: Looks like it’s that time! Let me escort you to the delivery room, Princess. Do you know a tiny green man, by the way? (begins helping her up) I told him I’d try to get him in before you give birth, and he said, “Do…or not do…there is no try!!!”

IMA: Yes, he had a hand in this, if it’s a little guy with pointy ears and wrinkles.

DR: Funny you should say that, he had a hand in him, too! (they start to exit the stage left)

IMA: Nice fellow, but a bit of a puppet. (they leave, with Rue sitting alone)

RUE: (sighs) Well, Valeria, it’s just you and me, unless my brother brings me that chili dog I asked for half an hour ago.
(the gloved hand from earlier begins to sneak back into the scene from off stage.)

RUE: I’m going to ask for a shot of Patosin if I don’t start contracting soon. Too bad your Uncle Ben isn’t here. Probably passing out big stinky cigars! At least he’ll be around to rock you. I was thinking, he’s always making contractions. But it looks like I’m stuck with a long-winded, four syllable speech kind of labor. You’re probably in there conducting experiments and don’t even notice it’s time to be born. You’ll be a daddy’s girl, for sure. But I’m sooooo bored!

(the hand pats her on the shoulder comfortingly. Do not poke the actress in the face!)

RUE: Aw, sweetheart! There you are!!! I love you.
(over the intercom, we hear a voice)
VOICE: Calling Doctor Howard, Doctor Doom, Doctor Howard!
RUE: You’ve got to be kidding me.

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Elton John - Home Again (Official Lyric Video)

https://www.facebook.com/soulrocketman?ref=hl Click here for our homegrown cover duo!

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Home Again with Elton John

After posting the Front Row interview where Elton criticizes television-made psuedo stardom, my FB buddy Matt Curry asked me if 1) was Elton eating during the interview? and 2) had I heard "Home Again" ? The advance release single is apparently meeting great interest on YouTube, and deservedly so. Arrangement wise, it's much like Elton of the past twenty years, removed from the pop/ rock stage, more daring in emotional honesty than innovative, more reliant on classical playing skills matched with soul vocals than the rock or dance styles (for danceable Elton, there's always last year's Euro smash mash up Elton John vs. P'nau). He knows he has nothing to prove, and as his live piano & voice solo tours of the late 70's suggests (and he often plays benefits that simple way, today), he benefits from directness as a performer. As much as critics laud the carefully produced output of the first six records, I think comfortably sitting down and pounding out a few numbers for T. Bone Burnett feels honest, and makes it that much simpler to go home to Elijah and Zachary at the end of the day.

Those boys are part of his universal appeal in "Home Again," which he described on Front Row as reflecting any travelling business person's concerns. I like the estimation of the song, on Ultimate Class Rock forum, as a return to inspiration, which is that ephemeral spot in space and time where every artist feels renewed.

https://www.facebook.com/soulrocketman?ref=hl Click here for our homegrown cover duo!


I was struck by his description of his song writing as essentially unchanged. The half-hour and done approach is where the songs that "work" originate. He still takes a stack of Bernie's lyrics and just sits down and sees what he feels like. He knows those keys and tones well enough to respond with a mood, and the song happens then or doesn't! It reminds me of the moment caught on film where he sits down with "Tiny Dancer" and starts analyzing it with the documentarist (though it's almost certainly not when he actually wrote the tune; it's part of a Goodbye Yellow Brick Road "making of" documentary on YouTube.)


I'm glad! I do like the track...great writing again. It looks like another chart success; I was surprised by his big Euro number one's with Australia's P'nau last year, the electronica re-mix of 70's Elton...it actually carried some emotional ballast for me that made it part of the time, sweet, intimations of things that weren't to be, but very deep feelings, which I don't associate normally with techno.

I think Home Again may become another of those "I was there then" tracks, which impresses me, that he's still vital. But live, we concentrate on his first six albums, songs way out of his present vocal range--and Anj covers "Sad Songs" and "Your Song" for us and I throw in "I'm Still Standing"---heck, we even learned a couple of his lost 70's soul era tunes! Re-discovering Capt. Fantastic last year changed my song writing a lot, as Elton uses many more chords than guitar players usually do, and paints a rich harmonic canvas in which to explore and interpret the lyrics, particularly on that early run. It's rewarding to have a twenty year old mouthing "Rocket Man" or "Bennie and the Jets" as we play!!!!

He just might not be invited back for "American Idol" and similar shows after his honest remarks ---The Voice, he feels, is about the judges, and the poor contestants are only as good as the next song (Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, and Clay Aiken, probably, oh, who's that guy with the mascara, I can picture him...shit! Adam Lambert. But what's he sing?) Too bad, because "Idol" had some performances of "Take Me To the Pilot" I was surprised to discover; at least the catalog's just too good to pass up.

But, sod it, he's Sir Elton Hercules John. The guy who confesses he can only come up with dirty lyrics and moons people from yachts and writes books about AIDS and saves countless lives through humanitarian work. He lived to see civil unions acknowledged in his homeland and will live to see gay marriage across America, in the often out-of -the way towns he prefers to tour these days. No one around me gave a toss about Elton when I found his music, including Elton (except my English teacher, God bless you for letting me write about him, what was your name, Coach's blond wife?), but I knew solid song writing when I heard it. After researching some crowd-pleasers on the charts for 2013, I have to say he's still got something to teach about craft, and just maybe, as was not always the case, about feeling, and honesty.

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Celebrate your own Declaration of Independence (abridged)

We can accept: it’s alright to find ourselves growing in ways we can’t yet describe. However much we value sharing human experience, there’s a feeling that is both so incredibly alone, yet profoundly connected to the universe.
What’s independence, after all, without free people? Then, who else, do we decide is, to a similar enough extent to aspire and relate, similar in his or her potential to be a free person?

My purposeful desire to connect with elements and conditions that may have yet to acquire a vocabulary ---or perhaps play part in one developed elsewhere, in the occult or science---suggests a desire for communication. What is that, but to share another side, besides our own apparent mind? We reach into degrees of otherness to inquire about a full identity.

Now, I have found myself attempting to let another, and then another, person into my deepest trust, the foundation of my circumscribed identity. The conditions in which one such love formed made a nice rumination for a novel last month. To exploit a resource that so richly belongs to us both is wise, since we can also replenish and renew and re-experience its flow. There is the more cursory level at which I enjoy sharing culture and talk with many others, which is exactly my online (in my case, Facebook) experience. It’s given me a wealth of attractions. Yet to have this mental material on hand could well be an effort to distract myself from the internal growth process.
The demand to understand someone who I could not see face-to-face, who contained a focus for so much emotional investment and procreatively inspiration to make arts most of all, with the desire to please and emotionally fulfill her. The time has come again for that person not to be an outsider lost to me, apparently by complications, but to fulfill the inner self.

Even the novel was a purposeful attempt, not only to vie for a living as a writer in as uncompromising manner as possible, but to re-join society, the brotherhood and sisterhood of being alive, with an emotionally-resolved story of myself, and my sincere efforts to share. Bring back food for my tribe, as it were. I learned, by describing details of physical movement and experience, I have my best opportunity to open that and share it.

In the process of learning to make a voice to share with others, I have turned to my best honest assessment of what’s going on, just as you each do with your own close friend or conscience.


As I listen to the Marc Kane strumming her way through “Aeroplane O’er the Sea,” after the emotionally soothing recitals of “Your Song,” I realize how very much I enjoy her presence. It seems so natural to lavish affection upon her. Her eyes are shut, the song’s flowing through her. Her attempt to digitally color a panel from the very comic book I mentioned (as presented on my t-shirt) to another person I found warm and friendly in person ties me through that inside out outside in ethos. I lie there thinking of the friends who have entered my thoughts, and some visions of the Lone Ranger, too.
Now, she plays again “Prokleta Nedjelja” and I realize how her performance of the song itself in the moment brings a smile; the moment where I remembered wanting to play this and so many other songs for our love right here in this room echoes, but does not weigh me down. Rather, it becomes a triangulation for that ever-lasting (if in the limited space of a body’s life, or not) effort to “sound out”-- to reach into the darkness of the senses-- and know something new, purposeful, personally revolutionary. There’s a lot of strange vocabulary for the paths there to ponder, and I sometimes wonder if I am reluctant to adopt the words of another because of how it might re-shape what I perceive.


I’ve considered almost non-stop, alongside the agreeable shared and stable experience alongside the Marc Kane as we live in peace, creativity, and just enough agitation to move us into more beneficial personal actions), whatever I may have learned ,and still may realize, from trying so hard to hold onto and understand someone whose behavior seemed to mimic our own, then seemed to belong to someone very different. I think of Egypt tonight, how this effort to live in consensus and its inherent conflicts based on difference (and indifference) happens in so many ways throughout the world, even with military agitation and great financial manipulations at its extreme in the material aspect.


Whoever else we would share inner peace with must have their own sincere declarations of independence. There is the point of radiance, in which we can share energies with the person yet remain somewhat detached from the vacillations and rely on whatever power exists beyond our own personal command to play its part in the fact that we care, but we cannot change the condition of this other person, willfully. The desire to seek that sort of control pronounces a demand for their dependence, for our symbiosis, to ask for a lack of independence.



When my own artistic independence has returned its voice to the songs we wrote, I feel secure I have a friend who will help synergize a production process in which we are capable of letting decisions flow through us, without struggling for control, to run together rather than lean. We have to find the effective way in which we can let another lean on us or the mutual effort is lost, to lack of will and balance. I’ve been preparing myself with practicing popular songs, which have the benefit of that shared experience when I spotlight them in public. It opens me as a vessel to exploring the new music and arrangement and production ability that will enhance the material, because I will be united comfortably enough with my instruments to bear with whatever discomforts emerge in these labors. Maybe if I will not perceive my work in relationship to that of others, I will arrive at something new and innovative, despite the limitations I may have assessed in myself. This bears true, too, in not judging myself in relationship to others in any other way. Take what ideas fit profitably into your sanity, but never drive yourself crazy with how bad anything is. It’s just another form of self-amusement---yes, even our self-inflicted tortures over our lost dreams and opportunities.



There is someone different than me, that is still my future result of directions taken now, and I have been aware I’m interested in investing that kind of love, attention, and determination in that self, as I have for others. The ability to be selfless for others, however, must be nourished, as we must be aware of what we have to give without resentment, without need to control anyone but ourselves. Herein lies the limitations of cooperation, which will determine the success of such energetic gifts to find purpose.

Nothing less than the sensation of the value of living and creating the moments of our experience (all living reflects what is, to the person, the art of living) is at stake. If someone else becomes so valuable, we do, perhaps must, risk the robbery of value gone with their loss. Part of our identity has wandered away, rejecting us. One's integral self, the You you must wake up with each and every day and night, requires our fidelity. We only have, in the end, what we appreciate.


It’s possible, to let something important in our development fracture, is to expose ourselves to an angry repressed self. It’s like the power inside you turning out to be the Incredible Hulk, a force of nature you can only hope retains your core decency while it threatens to smash its foes and leave you penniless somewhere with a hole in your memory. It’s possible that much subtler rages and judgments may emerge in the process of being friends, and the impatience we feel with someone we want to like, in some way, love, may be our impatience with ourselves, for what we would be happier to be, yet will not work towards being…because our self-absorption has come to wear the guise of others, who bear weaknesses and strengths that are, emotionally, cognitively, really our own.




When you make a picture, you celebrate a person. A piece of jewelry, hand-crafted, may celebrate ideas even further open to interpretation. It’s that openness to interpretation that ultimately creates activities for freedom. To make art in any format is potentially to make activities for free people. What’s independence, after all, without free people?

I will have to not be afraid to be alone, take encouragement from unique moments. I need not to return yet with anything, though it’s like to open up a much more self-sufficient mode of approaching people. It’s really not so bad being to yourself sometimes. I think meditating in the presence of someone else might be really great, too; I imagine for those who occasion to pray together, or engage in other rituals, it’s a very similar togetherness of whole and separate beings. I know I offered to start one new friendship on that basis, and if it’s meant to begin in person at all, I think sitting in quietude together would be a great start.

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Living with your declaration of independence

We can accept: it’s alright to find ourselves growing in ways we can’t yet describe. However much we value sharing human experience, there’s a feeling that is both so incredibly alone, yet profoundly connected to the universe.
What’s independence, after all, without free people? Then, who else, do we decide is, to a similar enough extent to aspire and relate, similar in his or her potential to be a free person?

My purposeful desire to connect with elements and conditions that may have yet to acquire a vocabulary ---or perhaps play part in one developed elsewhere, in the occult or science---suggests a desire for communication. What is that, but to share another side, besides our own apparent mind? We reach into degrees of otherness to inquire about a full identity.


Now, I have found myself attempting to let another, and then another, person into my deepest trust, the foundation of my circumscribed identity. The conditions in which one such love formed made a nice rumination for a novel last month. To exploit a resource that so richly belongs to us both is wise, since we can also replenish and renew and re-experience its flow. There is the more cursory level at which I enjoy sharing culture and talk with many others, which is exactly my online (in my case, Facebook) experience. It’s given me a wealth of attractions. Yet to have this mental material on hand could well be an effort to distract myself from the internal growth process.
I realized, my secret efforts to re-fill the position of that deep trust with yet another person meet with the realities of patience and continued forgiveness to myself for allowing someone else so formatively deep into my emotions, into my shared peace with the Marc Kane, when that person was meant to abandon any sincere commitment. The demand to understand someone who I could not see face-to-face, who contained a focus for so much emotional investment and procreatively inspiration to make arts most of all, with the desire to please and emotionally fulfill her. The time has come again for that person not to be an outsider lost to me, apparently by complications, but to fulfill the inner self.

Even the novel was a purposeful attempt, not only to vie for a living as a writer in as uncompromising manner as possible, but to re-join society, the brotherhood and sisterhood of being alive, with an emotionally-resolved story of myself, and my sincere efforts to share. I learned, by describing details of physical movement and experience, I have my best opportunity to open that and share it.

In the process of learning to make a voice to share with others, I have turned to my best honest assessment of what’s going on, just as you each do with your own close friend or conscience.


As I listen to the Marc Kane strumming her way through “Aeroplane O’er the Sea,” after the emotionally soothing recitals of “Your Song,” I realize how very much I enjoy her presence. It seems so natural to lavish affection upon her. Her eyes are shut, the song’s flowing through her. Her attempt to digitally color a panel from the very comic book I mentioned (as presented on my t-shirt) to another person I found warm and friendly in person ties me through that inside out outside in ethos. I lie there thinking of the friends who have entered my thoughts, and some visions of the Lone Ranger, too. My epiphany of taking a few seconds to actively envision comfort to myself, the inner being reflecting the sadness over Kaja, who we did so very much wish to share all company with. I had long since made it okay to open that peace possibly for another; for fun it’s reflected sometimes in simpler ways, sharing the aesthetic pleasures of those we see, sharing perceptions.


Now, she plays again “Prokleta Nedjelja” and I realize how her performance of the song itself in the moment brings a smile; the moment where I remembered wanting to play this and so many other songs for Kaja right here in this room echoes, but does not weigh me down. Rather, it becomes a triangulation for that ever-lasting (if in the limited space of a body’s life, or not) effort to “sound out”-- to reach into the darkness of the senses-- and know something new, purposeful, personally revolutionary. There’s a lot of strange vocabulary for the paths there to ponder, and I sometimes wonder if I am reluctant to adopt the words of another because of how it might re-shape what I perceive.



I reflect on the "mountain of sacrifices" scenes in D'n'A/ Puzzle Girl comics, and also at hidden beginning and climax of "I'd Go Anywhere With You." I think the betrayal of our own safety and comfort with my own decisions when our triad was abandoned (and revealed to be one in disguise, it seems) generated my own personal "mountain" experience, shattering the comforts of what I had come to know and accept as my daily life. While I was reporting a fictional, symbolic exorcism of the psyche from one actual afternoon early in our relationship, crossed with our ritual to separate us from voluntarily vampiric influences, in writing that scene for the sake of the story, I included, as two inspired characters, two people who actually helped me deal with the harsh reality of our situation. Consciously finishing a story in dramatic fashion, in resolving Gina's problem she shares with Lewis---the one that had stunted her growth as a person---I magically resolved my own haunting, of the life we envisioned over the course of a year, one never, it was already decided, to be. Gina's emotional ownership of her spiritual, psychological security became my own, vicariously. Making love and comforting the lost ghost echoes a place one other shared in our imaginations. Laying her to rest with love, free of negative influences, became laying that dream to rest, yesterday's fruit carried away as today's seeds for tomorrow's new life. They are turned back from their dreams by the unexplained, yet in the process of being themselves, the characters find another doorway to their dreams in the final chapter. These victories of love encourage me to see the value of that work.

I’ve considered almost non-stop, alongside the agreeable shared and stable experience alongside the Marc Kane as we live in peace, creativity, and just enough agitation to move us into more beneficial personal actions) whatever I may have learned and still may realize from trying so hard to hold onto and understand someone whose behavior seemed to mimic our own, then seemed to belong to someone very different. I think of Egypt tonight, how this effort to live in consensus and its inherent conflicts based on difference (and indifference) happens in so many ways throughout the world, even with military agitation and great financial manipulations at its extreme in the material aspect.

Whoever else we would share inner peace with must have their own sincere declarations of independence. There is the point of radiance, in which we can share energies with the person yet remain somewhat detached from the vacillations and rely on whatever power exists beyond our own personal command to play its part in the fact that we care, but we cannot change the condition of this other person, willfully. The desire to seek that sort of control pronounces a demand for their dependence, for our symbiosis, to ask for a lack of independence.



When my own artistic independence has returned its voice to the songs we wrote, I feel secure I have a friend who will help synergize a production process in which we are capable of letting decisions flow through us, without struggling for control, to run together rather than lean. We have to find the effective way in which we can let another lean on us or the mutual effort is lost, to lack of will and balance. I’ve been preparing myself with practicing popular songs, which have the benefit of that shared experience when I spotlight them in public. It opens me as a vessel to exploring the new music and arrangement and production ability that will enhance the material, because I will be united comfortably enough with my instruments to bear with whatever discomforts emerge in these labors. Maybe if I will not perceive my work in relationship to that of others, I will arrive at something new and innovative, despite the limitations I may have assessed in myself. This bears true, too, in not judging myself in relationship to others in any other way. Take what ideas fit profitably into your sanity, but never drive yourself crazy with how bad anything is. It’s just another form of self-amusement---yes, even our self-inflicted tortures over our lost dreams and opportunities.



There is someone different than me, that is still my future result of directions taken now, and I have been aware I’m interested in investing that kind of love, attention, and determination in that self, as it was for Kaja. She is a whole other human being, and so to place her well-being as such a high priority and dole out all the respect and care I could manage seemed selfless. The ability to be selfless for others, however, must be nourished, as we must be aware of what we have to give without resentment, without need to control anyone but ourselves. Herein lies the limitations of cooperation, which will determine the success of such energetic gifts to find purpose.

Nothing less than the sensation of the value of living and creating the moments of our experience (all living reflects what is, to the person, the art of living) is at stake. If someone else becomes so valuable, we do, perhaps must, risk the robbery of value gone with their loss. Part of our identity has wandered away, rejecting us. One's integral self, the You you must wake up with each and every day and night, requires our fidelity. However the maxims of Polonious may have been to the old man in Hamlet,when suited to a context of just what truth is, it remains: "To thine own self, be true." Whether we grok the meaning in fullness, our words carry intimations of many-sided and fascinating experiences. It is sometimes the case that the words evoke a feeling but not any sincere commitment or attachment that one would defend as integral, and there is a level at which some action is necessary to accord a value, by which we may return to exploring the many sides of the intimate experience. We only have, in the end, what we appreciate.



Having re-united with the origin story of my love for the Marc Kane---and however fictional the presentation, at its core I found myself first falling in love with her again, which will be welcome in any other books, and just may be the aspect that will unify TRANZ as its characters come to life for us---I have subsumed myself in the nourishing power of that togetherness. I will be engaged with some very social activities meant to bolster our economic fortunes, which rely merely on subsistence to keep us involved with a life we enjoy here. I will have to answer the call to the inner life, too, the one beneath the attractions I use to unite me with others emotionally.
We probably on some level enjoy all our peaceful interactions with people, even if we apparently disagree, so long as it doesn’t involve that personal eviction from one’s trust that is so taxing when cleaning the wheelhouse of the mind. I think I was at the spot where I wanted to depend a bit on some outside friend to nurture my emotional corridors that propose like leaves on a plant to reach out into the light and take in the radiance, while providing some satisfaction to the observer based on their own appreciation. I was at the spot where I had ways to serve another, which seems very purposeful as well, at times, but it’s really time to delve a bit deeper into reality, and cross a threshold that may be full of understandings ahead of their time. That is actually optimal. To write something with the power to intrigue a century later is to approach the apex of the writing experience. We may very much wish to share stories popular in their time, as entertainingly told as possible. We may wish to say, without pretension, something delicate and subtle to consider about the truths of human experience. We may at most wish to provide those at the loneliest outposts of achieved self-mastery and love with companion thoughts. It’s a peculiar kind of compassion, to shine this light and reveal this pathless area. A lot of esoteric minds have converged upon rare and controversial knowledge that may occasion to provide ritual and vocabulary, which is to bring the strangeness of the imagination, what some relate to the numinous, into the fellowship of literacy.


It’s possible, to let something important in our development fracture, is to expose ourselves to an angry repressed self. It’s like the power inside you turning out to be the Incredible Hulk, a force of nature you can only hope retains your core decency while it threatens to smash its foes and leave you penniless somewhere with a hole in your memory. It’s possible that much subtler rages and judgments may emerge in the process of being friends, and the impatience we feel with someone we want to like, in some way, love, may be our impatience with ourselves, for what we would be happier to be, yet will not work towards being..because our self-absorption has come to wear the guise of others, who bear weaknesses and strengths that are, emotionally, cognitively, really our own.

Now drawing is another way of being alone, yet communing. Much of the emotional bond I made with Kaja, both of us, was through the drawings we made of her, the hours where we were present with the thought of her. It is not always seen by someone who looks at a picture, even one drawn of themselves, but the creation represents private space and time given over to assembling a vision of a subject. It’s time spent with others: those who will see the work, and those evoked by the work. It makes a delightful gift, as it contains a non-verbal, get-to-it-whenever you like set of messages and considerations that emerge from the viewer. When your gift goes to a person who appreciates it, there’s something so restorative in knowing that energy and impression has become part of the further adventures of the human spirit, starring You, Too. (The Adventures of the Human Spirit, starring You, Too : I really like that meme. It has a lot of positive facets and even endures sarcasm with humility.)

The return of appreciation --which seemed to all drain away with the value of life as the Ba-Doom family changed by indifference that one of us would never reconcile---coincides with simply sharing that gift with many others, as was always intended. Such solitary attention was never demanded, but in light of what we were trying to develop from much too far away, physically and morally, it was a gift meant to sustain her until she came to our side. To love art that way is another way of giving to one person after the other. The value of everyone else who was not one of us three has re-emerged vibrantly, along with the willingness to make art, and the will to make and give it.

When you make a picture, you celebrate a person. A piece of jewelry, hand-crafted, may celebrate ideas even further open to interpretation. It’s that openness to interpretation that ultimately creates activities for freedom. To make art in any format is potentially to make activities for free people. What’s independence, after all, without free people?


I will have to not be afraid to be alone, take encouragement from unique moments. I need not to return yet with anything, though it’s like to open up a much more self-sufficient mode of approaching people. It’s really not so bad being to yourself sometimes. I think meditating in the presence of someone else might be really great, too; I imagine for those who occasion to pray together, or engage in other rituals, it’s a very similar togetherness of whole and separate beings. I know I offered to start one new friendship on that basis, and if it’s meant to begin in person at all, I think sitting in quietude together would be a great start.

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