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Photos from my mobile phone while I lived with Rose in Ridgewood. Rose is now very happy in Hudson, NY.

On Saturday: Deenah, Dan, Daoud & I wake up in Indio, California. We drive from our Motel 6 to Joshua Tree National Park. I've never seen a Joshua Tree before. After driving through miles of flat space, coming upon a Joshua Tree feels like an encounter with a god.

Before I acknowledge the tinyness of myself, my travel companions, and the park, we walk the cholla cactus trail. The cholla are the first locals we encounter on our trip through Joshua Tree.

I have to mention the holiness of these plants as well. When walking through a forest, you brush up against plants all the time. But this is not the forest, and these plants demand respect.

Look but don't touch.

Walk slowly.

We drive on, leaving behind the cholla, and getting closer to my discovery of tinyness. After more space, we come upon fields of rocks. We can walk among them.

And climb among them.

We can stand and sit on them.

It's the rocks that make me re-remember how tiny I am.

Not only am I tiny. Everyone is tiny.

Dan is in the next one too, look close.

Dan is hypothetically in the next 2 images. (This one from the Orange County Register)

(next image from NASA's Visible Earth)

The rocks offer me anamnesis of scale, and allow us to play on top of them. But in exchange they demand a respect very different from the cholla cactus. A respect not so different from a wet city sidewalk. We must be careful with where we place ourselves, or else our selves get stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Or between two rocks, in this case.

But we're careful, and today no one gets stuck between any rocks or hard places.

Sunset, 2010 February 7

In Los Angeles, I climb the hill on Occidental College campus. At the top I meet a stranger who tells me to take a photo of these birds because they're a rare site. For his whole life he's lived near the hill we stand on, so I believe him. Click for the full size, they (the birds) are tiny.

Sunrise, 2010 Feb 11

I wake up early from a dream. It's a bit chilly, and I know I won't fall back asleep. I decide to climb the hill again and see the sunrise. I've not been awake for sunrise since... late August I think. Maybe early September.

The moon is waning, nearly new. I recall the full moon very well, and I'm surprised at how half a moon cycle has nearly passed. It's felt like so long since then, but it's not even been two weeks.

My perception (or my perception of my perception) of time has been miscalibrated for a while now. Or rather, newly calibrated. A week passes and the state of mind I have feels like my whole life has been that state of mind. I can't tell if I've achieved a better understanding of my emotions, or if I'm just terribly confused about the rate time passes.

One of things I always find appealing about travel is how it dilates time. Removing myself from my routine places and activities changes something in my brain's understanding of time. Perhaps our perception of time is based upon how much work our brain is doing, and the brain has to do more work to process the unfamiliar. This theory goes against the character in Catch 22 who lays in a hospital bed unmoving and bored. His claim is that being bored feels like a lot of time is passing. He's attempting to reach immortality through time dilation through boredom.

Having woken from a dream, I wonder: how do dreams fit into this understanding time and the (un)familiar?

Anyway, this is all just to say, I saw the moon nearly new.

Another pre-sunrise image. It's interesting to compare the difference of the city after sunset and before sunrise. More lights after sunset. The horizon has a brighter orange glow. You get the sense that things are receding. Before sunrise the sounds are less and so are the sights.

Ok, this one's not a tree.

I think these are from Feb 06, first weekend of being in LA. Matt hadn't yet arrived because he was trapped in DC in the huge snowstorm.

Here is Dan at the breakfast table:

Sara, pondering her soon-to-be-cut hair.

And Kevin reaching for his soon-to-be-shoed foot.

The room I slept in last night. Last night it was like this but darker.

Today you could see outside. It's like this, but lighter.

A store with lots of living friends. Bunnies. Don't touch.

Birdies. Can you see them?

Thinking of John Cage quotation:

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.

I particularly like that he uses powers of two to solve the dilemma.

Start of day, in the bathroom window:

On-way to mid-day (keep in mind above quotation if your patient enough to watch):

(video missing)

Mid-day, Union Square:

End of day, dinner:

Today I have a 10:15 am doctor's appointment in Brooklyn Heights. I wake up a little later than I'd intended, so I have a quick breakfast and hop on the bus. It snowed this morning; water runs vertically on the bus windows.

On New Jersey highways, while driving 65+ MPH, the water drops run at a more horizontal angle. Not so on a stop-and-go city bus.

After the doctor's appointment, which was a check-up, which is to say I got nothing out of it, I walk through Cadman Plaza. Bare trees abound. They catch my attention a lot these days.

On the train home later today, I'll read the following sentence in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

My mind branches and shoots like a tree.

I will think about how the trees catch my attention, and know that this is why.

But that will happen later. Right now I'm walking towards the train so that I can read the sentence. On Jay Street I pass by the altar for the dead dog.

The altar has been there for at least a year, probably several. It's always made me happy because it's an expression of love for an animal companion and because no one has been sick enough to destroy it. I also really like the objects devoted to the puppy. I wonder what stories each of them holds.

I board the train, and continue reading.

Quotations from an interview with Peter Carrol. I like this:

This universe does not appear to be the work of a humanoid sentient deity to me, unless it has a very perverse sense of humour.

And another, which I find a little scary...

I have often found it a good exercise to try and enter the paradigms of people I meet who hold extreme views and to keep taking those views a little further with each turn in the conversation until a positive feedback leads us into realms where the absurdity of the original premise becomes apparent.

...but I like the goal of discovering a core of absurdity.

Did you know I'm recording the new Kung Fu Crimewave record? I am! The recording is mostly done, and I'm preparing it for mixing over at Olive Juice Studios (did you know that I'm working on their website now? I am!).

I love this band. I captured this little video of them playing "Full Moon" in the Northeast Kingdom basement. I showed up around 11:45PM, missing the first song or two, but I entered a warm room with lots of people warmed by the kiss of whiskey. It was one of those special Tuesday nights when everyone had a bit too much to drink for no particular reason. The spontaneous Bacchanale is my favorite drinking environment.

(video missing)