Brand's Blog

Aleutian Tales, Volume One

- Dear Brand,

- Just received the copies of the CU MUG (Champaign- Urbana Macintosh Users Group) newsletters.  They are terrific. Just finished carefully reading them.  They are full of interesting things.  Of course, most of it is over my head and the rest I don't understand too well.  It's
  hell getting old.

- As I mentioned, we get our elecrticity from a couple of old diesel
  generators and it costs us 34 cents a kilowatt hour.  Even at that
  price it isn't too reliable. I appreciate the information you sent me
  about the compatability between my Mac and my square wave inverter.
  The Mac seems to get along fine with the battery charger - inverter
  set up.  I was thinking I might need a larger truck battery but the
  regular sized car battery works just fine.

- I am now working on a set up where I can keep the battery charged
  with an alternator hooked up to our bicycle exerciser.   I am having
  trouble, however, using the mouse while pedaling. I haven't figured
  out whether to fasten the base for the keyboard firmly to the floor,
  separate from the bicycle, rest my arms on the supports and try to
  keep my hands steady, or to fasten the bicycle to the computer
  supports and let the entire structure move as a unit.  I'll keep you
  advised.

- I'm having fun with my program on salmon fishing.  I have been
  gathering data about the various streams and bays and the salmon
  runs, dates, specific locations, weather tides, times, bait or lures
  used.  The problem is that fishermen lie a lot. They will tell you
  that they caught their fish in Nanteekin Bay when I know they were
  fishing in Humpy Cove. They will tell you they were using Pink Pixies
  when they were using Rooster Tails.  They will swear the fising is
  poor in Beaver Inlet when there are a million fish swimming through
  the channel. The Aleuts are even worse than the rest of the liars.
  They tell wonderful stories about fishing, eagles and the ravens.
  They all sound completely believable but I am sure they are just
  avoiding telling me any thing definitive about salmon.
- Sure liked you article about the Cray.   Can't wait to see the next
  installment.  Thanks again for the CU MUG newsletters.  Can't wait
  for the next issue.  If I do anything interesting with my Mac, like
  running it from aa wind generator,  I will be sure to let you know.

- Pop
June 1985

Never Again Would Bird’s Song Be The Same

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds’ song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.

--Robert Frost

Mary Had a Little Lamb

"Good afternoon, Mr. Fortner. Are we ready to play music today?"

I have taken piano lessons for a month from Cheryl, a delightful person, that I call my piano nazi. She gives me tons of homework every week, and expects me to finish it all when 2pm on wednesday rolls around.

"Mr. Fortner, did you do your scales? Lets hear them!"

"Mr. Fortner, did you do songs 3 thru 14?  lets hear them!"

"Mr. Fortner, if you continue to skip a finger on that scale, Im going to have to get a big ruler and start wacking your hand!"

I asked Cheryl if she had such a firm hand with her children.

She said " Oh no Mr. Fortner, I just love them! Last week my son complained that I was ruling his life. I told him he shouldnt worry his pretty little head about his life, I had his life under control. I told him that when he gets married, I will allow his wife to manage his life, but until them, its all taken care of! "

Song number 14 was 'mary had a little lamb'.  Well, I AM a rank beginner.

I played song 14 for Cheryl.

"Mr. Fortner, where is the feeling in that song? Where is the love?"

I replied, not unreasonably, that it was, well, just mary had a little lamb.

"Mr. Fortner, dont you understand that music is love? Music is not just the way we express our emotions, it IS emotion.  Love and music are one. When I play beautiful music, beautiful music, it expresses love to me, and I feel love, truly feel it. And you can do."

"But Ms. Piano Nazi, its just Mary Had a Little Lamb! Its a nothing piece. There is no love there...", I replied, but of course I didnt use the term 'Piano Nazi' in her presence, or I would probably lose permanent use of my right hand..

"Oh but Mr. Fortner, you are so wrong! First, let us listen to how you played Mary Had a Little Lamb"

And Cheryl played the song perfectly, much better than I did. She hit every note, in perfect rhythm.

I replied, "Ah, OK.  thats better than I can do it, but I dont feel anything".

"But Mr. Fortner, just wait! Now listen to how it SHOULD be played! By YOU when you have enough training!"

And Ms. Piano Nazi played Mary Had a Little Lamb, but with 'some' additions. Her fingers danced on the keyboard, first soft, then hard, up and down the scales, up and down, all over. The original melody was still there, but now it was just the theme, and, well, it was beautiful. It was just beautiful.

I almost cried. I loved it. When she finished, I loved the world. I loved Mary. I even loved the Lamb, in a brotherly sort of way.  To think, that someday, I could do that.

"Mr. Fortner, we are just a few short months away from GREAT music. Beautiful Music. Music of the Soul. Back to work!"

Deer Conspiracy

I was driving home tonight from dinner at friends, and noticed some deer on the side of the road. More accurately, I noticed the reflections of deer eyes, and I presume that there were deer associated with those eyes. Three or four deer.

Couple hundred feet farther, another deer.  And another.

Then five or six. in the next stand.

And then, in a bend in the road where my headlights illuminated the woods, a symphony of deer eyes looking back at me.

I saw dozens of deer, or deer eyes, on a four mile drive.

Those of us of a certain generation remember the old Hitchcock movie 'The Birds", where you see one bird, then two, then more, all quietly perching, but observing.

I think the deer are up to something.

Two days ago, when I opened my door, there were five deer on the driveway, just looking at me. Looking at me the way one of the wiseguys in a mob movie looks at someone, with just a casual interest, wondering how they are going to wack you.  Not that they particularly care.

It is now 11pm and I just got back from walking my dog.  As I walked next to the woods, sounds of deer moving thru the woods reverberated.

They did not want me to hear their plans.

The deer.  They are planning something.

Who knows what they are planning?  A military takeover?  A terrorist act?  Are they communists?  We just dont know, and we need to.

We need INTEL.  Satellite photos and communications intercepts just wont cut it.

We need HUMINT. HUMan INTelligence. Agents that infiltrate the herds.

Make that DEERINT.

If you can dress up in a deer suit and fool other deers, Homeland Security would like to talk to you....

Walking Honey

Honey and I walk side by side, silently, in the still night air, distant cars, not so distant chirpings, the occasional street lamp, and stars above. The night sky had just a hint of the delight of the milky way, something that is impossible to see any further north on the eastern seaboard. For the next 30 minutes life and the universe will be simple. just me, the dark, imposing trees, the cover of impossibly distant stars, and the brief glimpses of brightly lit living rooms filled with televisions, dishes, people, like series of a dozen short films, all literally 'slice of life' movies, made for my benefit.

When I was young, I thought all of the worlds problems could be solved by information: gathering information, making information accessible to all, making it posssible for anybody to communicate anything to anybody, making it possible for all of the worlds knowledge to be available to all. That would be all we would need for utopia, a perfect society, a perfect world.

Obviously, I was badly mistaken. We have what I dreamed about, in spades.  Instead of not enough information, we have too much. Every day many of us drown daily in the global infosphere. Hundreds of emails, spams, web sites to check out, phone calls to return, IMs, voicemails, software to download, files to move, a cacophony of information burying our contemplative spirit.   The rule of unintended consequences takes over, where the solution to one problem creates others.

How do we filter the flood, focus on what is important, and exclude what is not?  How to we not get buried in minutia?

By walking Honey at night. By seeing the universe, the universe that doesnt care whether the wireless protocols are compatible, that doesnt even care of the entire human race lives or dies. The universe that gave birth to us, is our home, and may just yet provide us with a great sandbox to play with.

The universe. Thats what matters. Our relationship with the universe, with the unfathomable distance, age, size.

So I ignore the rest of my life, and focus on the universe,  arcing above me between the shadows of trees and houses, that looks the same to me as it did to julius ceasar, to homer.

I focus on that, and on Honey. by my side. walking in the dark.

Peak Experiences, Meditation, and Urban Riding

Went biking into DC today, it was such a beautiful day. 35 miles round trip, but more importantly, 420 vertical feet.  That was the toughest part, biking up the incline on the way back.

Biking got me thinking about that book, the omnivores dilemma, and how the author talks about the 'hunters zone', where the hunter stops thinking, and essentially becomes one with nature, observing every part of nature with almost supernatural senses. In other words, one stops thinking, and becomes one with what one is doing at the moment. Thats kinda a perfect description of meditation. where concentration on a mantra is supposed to clear your mind of extraneous thoughts.  Its also a description of being in 'the zone' in athletics, or of having a 'peak experience' in new age philosophy.  So I think all of these items describe the same sort of experience, which most humans find beneficial, and sometimes profound and emotional.

Which brings me back to my bikeride. I find that urban bikeriding, where one is weaving in and out of people, bikes, buildings, traffic, obstacles, you name it, gives me that peak experience. I cannot afford to think of anything but what I am doing, and I concentrate so hard on not crashing that extraneous thoughts, the outside world, my bike, they all disappear, and in my mind all that exists is me controlling my path thru obstacles, staying hyperalert by guessing which of those obstacles, such as small humans, will do unpredictable things.

So perhaps I should promote urban bikeriding as a mystical experience. But really, I think the meditationists put fancy labels on an experience that is not that uncommon, if one looks for it.  That experience of total concentration, of having ones ego fall away, of loosing all extraneous thought, of being one with the task, be it of saying 'OLMMMMM',  of landing a plane in bad weather, of driving a car in high speed heavy traffic, of skiing down a slope two colors beyond your capability, or, well, this is a longshot, giving blood, doing something that terrifies you.

Which perhaps explains extreme sports. For them, the peak experience can only happen when there is something real at risk, such as their lives, or their limbs.  That risk is a wonderful concentrator of ones mind.

For myself, Ill stick to urban bikeriding and giving blood for my peak experiences. No skydiving off of cliffs  backwards for me.

african art to the universe

A couple weeks ago my daughter mentioned that she was taking an african art class.

I said that african art left me cold.

She said that that was because I had no concept of african culture or society. If I did, I would see how great the art really is.

Which I am sure is true.

What we see, how we see it, and what effect it has on us depends strongly on what we know.

I remember as a kid being dragged to art museums, which did nothing for me. However, nowdays, art museums are some of my favorite places, because the best art resonates with what I have already learned about life, or are learning: I see emotions, or beauty in the art, and it resonates with my emotions, my experiences of beauty, in a way that a child just cannot know.

Now I am untrained in art, so art to me is a purely emotional experience. But a trained artist, going to an art museum, that person experiences something else, an intellectual thrill that I cannot have, a thrill that comes from knowing the artist and the art from their studies.

So returning to the african art that started this entry: african art leaves me cold now. If I knew more about africa, would I react emotionally, as I currently do to western art, or intellectually, as trained artists do to art works?

Probably, a little of both. But note that some exposure to africa is needed even for the emotional reaction.

Think of music. If I hear unfamilar music, such as say tibetian chants, to me it seems like noise. But to tibetians, Im sure it sounds beautiful.  To get that emotional experience, one needs some exposure, some knowledge.

But now lets talk about a great piece of music, say beethovens 9th symphony, 4th movement. Arguably the greatest 20 something minutes of sound our planet has produced. I feel strong emotions listening to it.  What about the trained musician? Does his or her intellectual enjoyment enhance or mute his or her emotional enjoyment of the piece?

I dont know the answer.  But let me tell you why this topic interests me.

This topic interests me because I believe that it would be beneficial to the planet if everyone could fully grasp our place in the universe. If they could grasp the true awe of the universe, they could perhaps understand what is important and what is not important in terms of how we construct our modern civilization. They would be able to grasp that survival of our civilivization, our infosphere, and our search for knowledge of the universe is more important than the trivial details of our lives, such as religion, war, death, life.  That our civilization should be structured around long term survival, for the universe, as opposed to short term benefit.

It seems like the paragraph above has nothing to do with african art. So bear with me a little longer.

When I was a young kid, 6 years old and up, looking at the stars did nothing for me. I remember borrrowing telescopes, and wondering what the big deal was, just dim points of light.

Which is true, with no knowledge, stars are just dim points of light, very boring.

I am much older know. When I look at those same boring stars, I am filled with total awe at the majesty of the universe, with the total knowedge of how insignificant our planet is compared even to our own galaxy, let alone the whole universe.

That total awe helps me focus on what is truly important on this planet.

But to give everyone on the planet that total awe and mystic experience, one needs knowledge.  Knowledge that doesnt come easily. Knowledge that goes contrary to relgious fundamentalists of all stripes, who I view as the true evil ones of our civilizations, fundamentalists of all religions.

So back to the topic.  We need to save humanity by generating awe of the universe. We can only do that by knowledge, since just looking at stars doesnt do it. People need knowledge first.

Cheerio,

Brand