Apropos

Yesterday, while driving down a street I always wondered about but never turned up, I stumbled on something interesting. It was a large labyrinth, the Dimeo Labyrinth, a heretofore unknown gem within minutes of my daily commute. My awesome friend Jesse and I took turns walking the labyrinth at the Garfield Conservatory not to long ago, it seemed fitting in the midst of this Jesse-lovefest to revisit a labyrinth.

First, from wikipedia:

Labyrinths are used by modern mystics to help achieve a contemplative state. Walking among the turnings, one loses track of direction and of the outside world, and thus quiets his mind. The result is a relaxed mental attitude, free of internal dialog. This is a form of meditation. Many people believe that meditation has health benefits as well as spiritual benefits. The Labyrinth Society provides a locator for modern labyrinths in North America.

Well I’ll be damned, I must be a mystic. But, I find labyrinths are more useful for focusing my thoughts. On this particular labyrinth I had Tom McCarthy’s novel Remainder on my mind. I picked it up after it won the 4th annual Believer Book Award and I was nearing the end of the novel when I set out on the labyrinth. It was apropos.

The novel is about details and the role they have in life, most importantly, how many of the intricate details that facilitate life–as a grown adult knows it–are automatic to most people, without thought. The protagonist becomes obsessed with the intricate details after his some accident and tries to re-enact large assemblies of intricate details involving several people. Then he begins to slow down the re-enactments to extract as much detail as possible, he turns seconds into eternities. The novel goes on to suggest a cause for the man’s obsession, true and fiction blend, blah blah blah, but the true joy of the novel only became apparent when I entered the labyrinth.

As I walked, meditatively concentrating on my breath, my mind raced through the sounds around me, the rocks crunching under my feet, the distant sound of birds, the wind. I slowed my step, concentrating as the guy in the novel did, on every muscle I could recall the name of. I imagined my muscles coordinating the next step, then executing it. A passing car broke me from my oblivion and my vision would rise to the forefront of my attention. Could I possibly remember every single possible bit of gravel? Are any two bits of stone in this labyrinth identical? What about the words carved in stone: “Clean”, “Brave”, what were the others? Then a red piece of string came into view, did it have any significance? Probably not, but then another appeared, that’s weird, then two together.

Before I knew it, I was at the center of the labyrinth, but I had been there for over an hour, it was strange and cool and at no point had I been void of internal dialog, but filled with it. From mimicking the sounds I was hearing to re-imaging the things I had seen, my mind was anything but silent, it was, however, focused, honed, keen.

It goes without saying, details are something else, when looking closer at things, you see things you don’t expect:

Leaves Are Changing

Subtle context: the leaves slowly starting to change. It starts with moisture content, which manifests itself when the wind buffets the drying leaves, and the thick lush sounds of early summer leaves gently blowing are gone, but did you even notice them then? I did. They gently blew in any wind because their moisture-laden veins gave them a heft, the weight of water, a reinforcing strength against the strongest summer breeze. The lush sounds are now replaced by the tinny almost scratching sound, a sound almost indistinguishable from the sound of fallen leaves rattling on the roadways. So indistinguishable, upon hearing it, I look down before I look up.

Meanwhile, new signs of life spring from my coffee plants. The first new leaves since I acquired this gift from the woman at the Garfield Conservatory in Chicago. The gift was facilitated by the gifts of the young experimental particle physics doctoral candidate Jesse Chvojka. The greatness held within this fellow’s brain somehow allows him to disarm strangers with carefree charm. Such was the case when he and I encountered the woman at the conservatory. She approached us with questions about questions. Jesse, in his mysterious way conjured a question bordering absurdity. Willfully, happily, she replied. A few more exchanges and she was offering us coffee plants. I wish I could clue you in to the details, but I tell you, it is like Poof! with Jesse, before you know it, something is happening. As it unfolded, I tried to join the fray, it was haphazard and rough, a Chvojka I am not.

(clearing throat)

The phrase the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread is thrown around a lot these days. Its absurd really, because I buy my organic whole wheat bread in loaf form, that I then slice to my liking. This suggests the phrase is not all that is was cut out to be (oh man, can I riff on a pun or what?). Cultural relativism comes to mind, but maybe it is more like temporal relativism. So lets step backwards in time to an era when that phrase carried its full weight, and let me, in that period of time, say that Jesse Chvojka is the best thing since sliced bread, hands down. More on that in the coming days, for now, lets consider this…

What a way to steal the thunder, I mean, I thought it was blatantly obvious that McCain was making grabs for Clinton’s supporters back at the end of primaries, I even dreamed of a McCain-Clinton ticket (I am sure it happened in many parallel universes), but the McCain campaign has taken this to a whole other level. Like a magician’s sleight of hand–diverting with one hand while the other ruses–the McCain campaign has sucked the air out of the DNC. I can honestly say, I didn’t see that one coming, so it has to be the best political move since sliced bread was mandated in the Magna Carta.

Faux Pas

Seems to me that the media are playing fast and loose with their copy, in the past couple of weeks I’ve heard the following:

• Bob Costas on Somali-born US olympic runner Abdi Abdirahman:
  

  I’ve never seen him leaner and more hungry.

  Abdi’s parents fled Somalia amid famine and civil war (a famine that continues today and has a horrendous forecast).

• An AP article on Iraq’s soccer final with a sentiment repeated with the same nonchalance on NPR:
  

  Tens of thousands of Baghdad soccer fans cheered on their club in the top league’s final game, the largest sports crowd the city has seen since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

  Which can be interpreted two ways.

I’m just saying…

I’ve seen/heard many more, but didn’t jot them down. I wish I had.

Bike Ride Panoramic: Take 2

Here is the next attempt, same as before, but a different process (Milburn Street):

This is not the solution I had in mind (which was to use some kind of energy scaling scheme to automatically remove the foreground obstructions; I might try that later but it is more involved and right now I have dying stars to look at). I used more frames but only the middle third of each frame, it cuts down the registration problem that becomes more pronounced the further you are from the center since there is no traditional nodal point. Next time I’ll do one in color and of a more interesting scene.