Bricks and Boxes

Things in life which are always relative
Taste

It’s subjective if others’ eyes for fashion trends, color, and balance seem better or worse than your own. There is more than one direction for popular music, hot neighborhoods, and any other way you spend your cash. (Some even consider it fashionable to spend as little cash as  possible.)

Intellect

There is constant debate over how to measure the intelligence, but we can agree that no one mind is superior in all things to every other mind.

Personality and Beauty

Our minds are programed by other people, intentionally or not. That is why we have dog people and cat people. Beatles and Elvis. Punks and politicians.

Ignorance

You know more than those poor, under-informed fools, but someone knows all you know and more, you konw. I know because if you were the wold’s authority on a particular subject you’d be turning over every rock for answers. If you don’t understand that, then you’re the real fool here.

Morality

There are people who dedicate their lives to reach perfection. It’s been my understanding they can never make it there on their own.

Some stuff we find in absolutes

Honesty Empathy Justice Law Stupidity Mortality

You should never look down on anyone.

You will, of course, because you are human.

Try to forgive yourself, and then keep practicing.

—

Photo “Lego Relativity” by Skip The Budgie

Photo “Travelers” by m.toyama

Tagged: Lent, penance, truth

“You have a blog? Really?”

“Yeah. I have a couple, actually. I have one where I write longer stuff, mostly about me. Another is a shorter stuff, not as much about me. Then there are other places to write stuff not about me at all.”

“Does the one about you impress the girls for you?”

“Probably not. It does seem like mostly women read my blog, but they’re all married friends. I would prefer girls not discover me by way of my inner monologue.”

“I’ve always wanted to listen in on my husband’s inner monologue.”

Photo by found_drama

Tagged: bloggin

If you’re interested in my Lenten penance posts, you’d enjoy my friend Red Pen Mama’s blog. She’s given up Twitter for Lent. Every couple of days she posts about the challenges and enlightenment this penance has granted her. If you’re not familiar with Twitter, this is probably not a bad introduction.

1. Spending extra time in prayer. I wish I could say that of course of I am doing this. But instead of attending Mass more often or even reading my Bible, I’m probably dedicating more effort into getting and keeping my house clean.

….

2. Spending quality time with Dan. This is an effort that is being made both ways. Dan and I picked up the book Love Dare. And we are working our way through it over Lent.

…

3. Spending more time with my children — interactive time, not just sitting in the same room with them.

So, if you like discussions on penance, go on over, read, and comment your support. She is bright and sincere. She also responds to just about every comment (as Albamaria30). Ask questions and keep my friend on her toes throughout Lent. Let’s keep the poor woman connected to some people over the age of five.

Tagged: albamaria30, Lent, penance, red pen mama

“Hi. I need a photo I.D. card. I didn’t seem to get it in the mail. I printed this form off the internet and filled it out.”

“Your license is expired?”

“Yeah. I just noticed it like yesterd… er, whenever it was I filled out that out.”

“Heh. So, can I see your old license then?”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” [Check each pocket for my wallet.] “Oh no.”

“You don’t have it? That’s fine. I can..”

“Oh my God, I’ve been driving around today without my expired license!”

“HA! It’s fine, I’ll just look you up in the computer. You remembered your checkbook, I see. That’s good.”

“YES! Who do I make this out t… Ugh. I’m out of checks.”

“We don’t take cash.”

“How did I forget my wallet! I have.. Ooh, I have cash. How much..”

“We don’t take cash. The drugstore on the corner can get you a money order. It’s only like a buck.”

“Hmm. I have twenty, and a five, a couple ones…”

“It will be $28.00″

“Oh and the quarters.* So that’s $29.00!”

“We close at 4:15″

The money order cost me $0.79 and the cashier got an even bigger laugh out of my story than the lady at the DMV.

* Yesterday morning the cashier at the world’s dumbest grocery store… that’s not judgemental, it’s documented in their hiring policies.. gave me two dollars in quarters because she was out of singles and couldn’t understand that she could give me a ten if I gave her $22 instead of her giving my $8 in change for my twenty, by way of a five a one and the two dollars in quarters.

Temple Grandin talks about her work in animal science, her writing about the ways people think, and her concerns about the future for autistic students in America.

I look forward to seeing the bio pic, and specifically its illustrations of how she thinks.

After watching this, I don’t think I’m autistic, but I see some things that are familiar.

She describes her mind as one that works from the bottom up. Selecting from details, piecing together images, and building to the bigger picture. That is not me. That would tax either my senses or my patience.

I strip away detailed parts until I see the abstract, broader strokes of a specific action, or quality. Then I flip through my pile of abstract patterns that I’ve found everywhere and find a match. It is certainly a pile, not a library. I have had no success cataloging time and place, and attributing sources to anything I know.

I can follow a few sensory clues to navigate my pile. Smells and sounds. Emotional highs and lows. Flashes of light, fears, things I imagined in the dark as a kid.

My imagination is spatial. I’ve never drawn any fantasy worlds, my imagination isn’t visual. In the dark, though, I feel a fantasy world. I feel the space around my bedroom transform into a tall, long and narrow corridor. Then I feel it shift, walls racing away from me, expanding into some vast cavern. From compression to a vacuum. Maybe these are shadows from the archived abstractions, dancing around and around, taunting me into playing a game.

The most remarkable insight from Temple Grandin’s talk were her points about animals. I’ve always had a great bond with dogs; instant chemistry with every dog. One of my earliest emotional memories is the time my cousins’ dog bit me in my face. A plastic surgeon had to stitch my cheek back together. But it never made me afraid of dogs. I understood the dog who bit me. They understand me.

So, getting back to my thinking. I pluck all the details off a thing, leaving the broad strokes of a quality or action. I sniff through my pile of chewed up metaphors and find a match. Then I remember stuff about the old model and it teaches me about the new thing. Then I test what I knew of the old on the new as I put back some of those details.

I’m generally too lazy to put back every single detail, but I think you get the picture.

Tagged: autism, dogs, memory, metaphors, models, senses, TED Talks, Temple Grandin, thinking, truth

Sometimes I have trouble remembering thoughts and ideas. I can remember the mood, maybe the themes, but can never hold on to the details.

That’s stressful. Whenever it happens I have to remind myself, they’re only thoughts and ideas. I’ll have more.

Luxury Skimming Stone by Variations on Normal

I recently came across someone wondering about the ways they are perceived by outsiders.

Does anyone act absolutely the same with their intimate circle of friends and family as they do in casual acquaintances, working relationships, and public persona?

• If so, if you are always the same without secrets or special intimacy, are you missing anything important? Are you starving your soul of anything?
• If you are not the same, do you miss something about yourself? Will you ever know every person you hurt? Can trust in one person hurt another?

How often do you surprise the people who really know you?

I do a lot of relationship management. I don’t keep accounts, but I try to monitor who I’ve acknowledged lately. I leave my people a little change in the personality tip jar as I pass, just to acknowledge I see them, hear them, or think about them.

• The “hey neighbor” nod.
• A little eye contact as the cashier hands you a receipt.
• Liking an old college friend’s Facebook status.
• Accepting  a group invitation to a predictably awkward lecture event.
• Making room in conversation for the shyest guest at the table.

Who am I to be precious with my time and attention? I have the means to give something small to make sure a casual exchange or connection is human.

But everything I think to give is something I perceive to be mine. Time and attention I’m privileged to keep to myself.

What is that, exactly? Is that arrogance? Is it ego?

Who knows my ego? Just me, or everyone but me?

Tagged: giving, honesty, Lent, penance, persona

Lord, make me a channel of Your peace, like cabbage.

Tonight I stood for a while, a step shy of the top of some stairs, looking “up” into a crowded room. I quietly watched people from a new perspective.

I was surprised by the number of short people, gathered together, talking intimately below the eyes of people of my usual height. It was like finding an undertow I’d been swimming over.

I’ve promised myself I won’t do swimming analogies with this.

Anyways, I’d placed myself in a new line of sight. I’d taken something away and forced the new perspective. Now, this was only temporary. It only took one step to return to my usual oblivion and all the little people disappeared from my attention.

My Lenten penances are all designed to force a new perspective. I’m quieting my home at night. Attempting to find more honest ways of acting and speaking. I’ve removed a few comforts and commit to minor hurdles. Three or more changes resonating together like a chord.

After the first few days I’ve already faltered. I wish it was a better start. I’ve pulled up a few times, but I’ll keep starting, pushing a little harder, and eventually I’ll reach the middle.

I’ll never know when to expect the end. I’m trying to reach that middle by the end of Lent, but I will still only be at the middle.

I’m going to try a longer view. I’m briefly separated from my comforts, but I’m divorcing illusions. The illusions are gone, and they’ll stay gone. It’s time to stop looking for where they went. Look around and find truth.

Swim in truth.

Tagged: fear, honesty, Lent, penance, perspective, truth

Violent Femmes Country Death Song

I had me a wife, I had me some daughters.
I tried so hard, I never knew still waters.
Nothing to eat and nothing to drink.
Nothing for a man to do but sit around and think.
Nothing for a man to do but sit around and think.

Well, I’m a thinkin’ and thinkin’, ’til there’s nothin’ I ain’t thunk.
Breathing in the stink, ’til finally I stunk.
It was at that time, I swear I lost my mind.
I started making plans to kill my own kind.
I started making plans to kill my own kind.

Come little daughter, I said to the youngest one,
Put your coat on, we’ll have some fun.
We’ll go out to mountains, the one to explore.
Her face then lit up, I was standing by the door.
Her face then lit up, I was standing by the door.

Come little daughter, I will carry the lanterns.
We’ll go out tonight, we’ll go to the caverns.
We’ll go out tonight, we’ll go to the caves.
Kiss your mother goodnight and remember that God saves.
Kiss your mother goodnight and remember that God saves.

A led her to a hole, a deep black well.
I said make a wish, make sure and not tell and
close you’re eyes dear, and count to seven.
You know your papa loves you, good children go to heaven.
You know your papa loves you, good children go to heaven.

I gave her a push, I gave her a shove.
I pushed with all my might, I pushed with all my love.
I threw my child into a bottomless pit.
She was screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit.
She was screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit.

Gather round boys to this tale that I tell.
You wanna know how to take a short trip to hell?
It’s guaranteed to get your own place in hell.
Just take your lovely daughter and push her in the well.
Take your lovely daughter and throw her in the well.

Don’t speak to me of lovers, with a broken heart.
You wanna know what can really tear you apart?
I’m going out to the barn, with a never stoppin’ pain!
I’m going out to the barn, to hang myself in shame.

When I was 14 I punched a wall and broke a knuckle in my right hand. It was alarming. It was not cool.

I started to look at my temper. Teenagers all deal with rage, but I’d reached the point of using rage to deal with everything.

It took a while to get it right. Or it’s taking a while. Sometimes I go too far the other way. Feeling anger can frighten you away from allowing yourself to feel much at all.

I now similarly misuse my curiosity. Curiosity should be the family car, available to any part of me with somewhere to go, an errand to run, or just a private escape on the back roads.

I’m not sure each member in my internal family has had their time to practice behind the wheel. Sometimes they don’t all bother to come along for the ride.

It’s tough to just feel. Tough to resist stopping and constructing some silly analogy. I really don’t trust my heart to drive my curiosity station wagon, it might get angry if another car cuts us off!

Tagged: analogies, anger, curiosity, feeling, Lent, penance

Two thirds of the world have nothing to eat but half a bowl of rice every day. (Or so I read.)

How many can read?

How many would bother to make a smart comment about how their neighbor parks, about their embarrassing parents, or obscure references to entertainment they consumed and discarded decades ago?

How many have a life expectancy of 32 years?

I don’t imagine people who live on half a bowl of rice would be too bothered by sitting in a bar for a couple of hours without ordering a beer.

Would they dwell on the awkwardness when running into an old teacher, the father of a grade school friend? Would they hold on a little too tight to the satisfaction felt when this honors history teacher is impressed by one astute point about wit?

Would a primitive man delight in the ingenuity of tricking a lion and getting away? Would he just be grateful he was provided the means to find his escape?

I have nothing I really need that was not also provided to the poorest, the most primitive, and the learning-disabled.

I’m sure that I made the right call on the “cleverness” penance. I can’t honestly say I was too ambitious in my plans. I do hope it gets easier. I hope next time I can do more.

Tagged: education, Lent, penance, perspective, poverty, providence

I’m taking a most aggressive approach to Lent this time. I wasn’t at all satisfied with myself last year. Didn’t do enough. Got nothing out of it. Felt like the entire calendar year was a waste, not just 40 days. Spoiled Easter, too.

So this year I will try to put myself in such dire need that only prayer and God can get me through the night.

Abstaining from…
I’ve never been crazy about “giving stuff up” for Lent. Seemed childish. Usually it’s unhealthy stuff we need to cut out anyway. Well, here I’m giving up lots of stuff that’s unhealthy. Stuff that will be hard, so hard that I will need to pray to God to give me strength. So ultimately, I’m trying to bring more prayer into my life than ever before. I hope for this to be a major development in my life.

• Sugar
• Milk
• Cheese
• Alcohol

Quieting the house after 6 p.m.
Save for emergencies where I need to get something done for someone else. Never let your penance obstruct anyone else. I hope for this, too, to be a major, and lasting change in my life.

• Computer: off. I may permit myself limited use of the smartphone. But only for specific communication and tools. I’m cutting the blue glow of the monitor out of the night.
• No television. No Hulu or Netflix. Replace with relaxing reading, song, crafts, and most importantly, meditation
• If I’m going to work after the sun goes down, I want it to be relaxing work, or work towards a more relaxing, satisfied state. For example, cleaning the house, helping another, exercise, or filing taxes.

Removing the Crutch of Cleverness

Here’s the really abstract one. I have had trouble explaining this to anyone. I don’t yet know how it will play out. It will be a learning experience, a self-examination, and a work-in-progress.

• You’re going to quit being a smart ass?
  That should be part of it, but I’m aiming to change something more fundamental. I want to examine how I take the time to think.
• You’re refraining from snark? From the public display of cleverness?
  Yes, but I do it to see if I can still be of interest to people without being clever. Or rather, without assuming I can afford to be clever.
• You’re going to change your personality? For Lent!?
  If for only 40 days. Why not? Deep down I feel there is something gluttonous, lazy, and unfair in my personality. I going to try something a little unorthodox to deal with it.

That, yes, but it’s much more. I hope to finally work through my oldest addiction: I use smarts as my crutch.

• Clever problem solving is a great work-around, but too often you’re never doing enough of the work.
• Wit is an advantage socially, to connect with someone, but that kind of connection, by its nature, isolates others. The isolated nature seems like a poisoned environment for my soul.

I am stimulated by games in my mind. In my head, my greatest pleasure is playing with ideas of the world around me. There is nothing wrong sinful about the mind, but it is not the soul. I have trouble turning my mind games off. I have even more trouble playing as much with my heart.

For the next 40 days I will make room for my heart. God help me.

—

Photo by Wootang01

Tagged: alcohol, cleverness, games, heart, Lent, love, noise, penance, snark, television, wit

Here’s me. My glasses broke yesterday, and I suddenly realized I don’t have an acceptable backup pair. So, I’d like your help in selecting some new frames.

In case you forgot, or don’t know. This is me.

We’ll call this frame A, with colors 1, 2, 3, or 4. So, the big one is of A4. Get it?

This is B. Specify color 1 or 2, please.

And finally, style C. Colors 1 and 2.

Please select up to three style and color combinations. Thanks for your input.

Tagged: Anthony, collaboration, crowd sourcing, shopping

Clint Baker’s Cafe Borrone All-Stars “Sweethearts on Parade”

—

The Valentine’s Day Wikipedia entry tells of its disjointed mysteries.

Establishment of the Feast Day (496)

So, the world lost any real details about the lives of two Saints named Valentine. It seems the Church was only really interested in commandeering the date.

In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13 through 15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning “Juno the purifier “or “the chaste Juno,” was celebrated on February 13-14. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) abolished Lupercalia.

It is a common opinion that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to Christianize celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia

Legenda Aurea (mid 13th century)

Folklore may have dressed up Valentine in more love-related garb than what was real, filling their need to celebrate the fertility festival lost.

Legenda Aurea still providing no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II,
allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1382)

Then Chaucer comes along and writes a poem mentioning a Volantynys and mating doves. However, he was probably talking about another “Valentine,” whose feast day is in May.

While some claim the first recorded association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules.

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

["For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."]

Readers have uncritically assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14 as Valentine’s Day; however, mid-February is an unlikely time for birds to be mating in England. Henry Ansgar Kelly has pointed out that in the liturgical calendar, May 2 is the saints’ day for Valentine of Genoa.

That poem was to honor a royal wedding, also in May.

—

After this, there’s enough excuses for people to start building sentimental tradition on top of sentimental tradition. Eventually we end up with cards, gifts, and romantic dinner dates.

It happens to fall on the feast of St. Valentine of Rome, whatever he may have really done, but he probably didn’t drive loneliness out of the kingdom or give heart-shaped boxes of chocolates to persecuted Christians.

It is the day for celebrating “fertility” in the Western World, though. Imagine how our romantic wiles might be stunted without exchanging those little cards in grade school?

Give your sweetheart a kiss from me and have a great day.

—

Bombadil – Smile When You Kiss

Tagged: history, holidays, sentimentality, tradition, valentine's day

Looking through this WebMD (waiting room print edition) at a doctor’s office, I realize I personally know people dealing with each of these issues and ailments.

At first, this makes me feel a little old. Then it makes me feel especially loved.

Fugazi – Waiting Room

Tagged: age, health, love, waiting

Trying to better understand my new addiction to French pop music. I don’t understand more than 10 French words. I present to you a couple of recent impulse purchases.

I think it has something to do with the crazy rhythms…

Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot – Comic strip (1968)

…and the phonetic shapes of the wording (if that’s a thing), at least as I hear the wording.

Carla Bruni – Quelqu’un m’a dit

Tagged: brigitte bardot, carla bruni, serge gainsbourg

So that Dylan dude was actually a great singer at one point, and that point may be his finest moment. Everyone needs to own Nashville Skyline.

Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash duet

Living The Blues lyrics

Since you’ve been gone
I’ve been walking around
With my head bowed down to my shoes
I’ve been living the blues every night without you.

I don’t have to go far
To know where you are
Strangers all give me the news
I’ve been living the blues every night without you.

I think that it’s best
I soon get some rest
And forget my pride, but I can’t deny
This feeling that I carry for you deep down inside.

If you’d see me this way
You’d come back and you’d stay
Oh, how could you refuse ?
I’ve been living the blues every night without you.

I think that it’s best
I soon get some rest
And forget my pride, but I can’t deny
This feeling that I carry for you deep down inside.

If you’d see me this way
You’d come back and you’d stay
Oh, how could you refuse ?
I’ve been living the blues every night without you.

Good luck, Carla.

Tagged: Bob Dylan, johnny cash, You Got Swanked

I’m not a nostalgic man, but I’m bitter that music on tv isn’t anything like this. MTV, American Idol, et al, take note. Fun, sexy, happy people showcasing real talent is geat production quality.

CHER RITA COOLIDGE & KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

People on tv were allowed to be people just like me, and they weren’t embarrassed? A novelty from before my time.

Joni Mitchell-I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash Show)

Of course, here’s Joni Mitchell barely getting out of the way of one of my favorite songs with her forced Joni Mitchell-ness.

Johnny Cash & Joni Mitchell – The Long Black Veil

I like the lame joke at the beginning. Was that kind of introduction a leftover from vaudeville?

Tagged: cher, johnny cash, joni mitchell, kris kristofferson, Music, rita coollidge, television, Video

I worked at a plastics factory one summer. For a few weeks, I ran an injection molding machine, making gummy shoe insoles with a guy named Matt Sandy. Matt and I talked a lot about music in front of that machine. He probably had a broader knowledge of popular music than anyone I’ve ever known.

He would humor my abstract but amateur questions about styles, theory, and song stuctures. He once looked at me sideways for posing that Johnny Cash was the first punk rocker. (I bet I could get away with that now though.)

I never heard him play his own music, but I bet he was good. He told me he was going to name his next band Kristofferson Aeroplane. I remember to Google that name every once in a while. I wonder if he ever recorded or found another outlet for his great knowledge of music.

Help Me Make It Through The Night

I challenge anyone to find me two people singing more sweetly in leather pants.

Sometime in my dad’s mid-sixties, he bought himself a Jefferson Aeroplane album. He owns no other rock albums but Neil Diamond and Julio Iglesias, if that even counts.

Jefferson Airplane – Lather

Tagged: jefferson aeroplane, kris kristofferson, Music, Video

Serge Gainsbourg – Ah si vous connaissiez ma poule You should see this, too. Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin – Ballade De Melody Nelson You’re welcome.

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Beauty Mark (JB Mondino) 2008

Loudon Wainwright – Say that you love me

Martha Wainwright – Factory

Suggest some additions.

Tagged: charlotte gainsbourg, loudon wainwright III, martha wainwright, Music, serge gainsbourg