fleas and life

why no, come to think of it, i have yet to become acquainted with any fleas at the flea market tho i have been enticed by other knick-knacks and the such and i am familiar with a mermaid who once sang about such things. i have also heard that a 7 up is better than a 7 down tho i am now curious as to a 7 right or 7 left. those lamps without lampshades, i have heard they are quite fascinating and brighten a dull room just as the color yellow might brighten a dull aura or mood.
all these piles upon piles of things we are surrounded by; i bet jim henson, the future father of my first born child, would have some thoughts on the subject. but first i must go put his sperm in the freezer for safe keeping...
(written January 8, 2008)

meditations on the beautiful imperfect repeated cycles of life

This past Saturday evening I was fortunate enough to go see the dance performance 'Steve Reich Evening' at the Brooklyn Museum of Art http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=115). It was choreographed by Anne Teresa Keersmaeker to the music of Steve Reich.
There is a part of me that does not want to even attempt to put words to this incredible performance for I know there is no way I could possibly do it justice. But in a vain attempt I will say the performance dealt with the repetition of sounds, movements, and objects. It was a meditation on the patterns of the imperfections inherit in life as well as the simplicity and power of the cyclical.
Overall, a beautiful and overwhelming experience encompassing stunningly beautiful sounds, movements, lighting, and messages. An example to me of finely tuned forms of impeccable art coming together and making vast statements while remaining sensually appealing. Both a heaviness in the strength of it all as well as a lightness as the dancers floated, glided, and elevated energetically across the stage.
Below are some images from the performance (which I did not take, it should be noted):

"Flying With One Engine"

This past Friday evening I went to see a documentary being shown at the Tibetan museum called the Rubin Museum (http://www.rmanyc.org/index.xml?context=/), which on a side note, I highly recommend visiting. The film I saw was called 'Flying on One Engine' and was about an Indian doctor named Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet. There are many reasons why this man is special, other than the fact that he has now been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price eight times. He began his work as a plastic surgeon in the United States but after a car accident that left half of him paralyzed and a battle with cancer in his larynx as well as numerous other serious health conditions severely restricting his mobility and way of life he could no longer continue the life he once led.
For several years now, he has been living in Brooklyn on the money he receives from social security for half the year while he gets donors and medical supplies. He spends the other six months of the year in India performing thousands of free surgeries on Indian children, most of whom suffer from cleft lips.
He works 12 hour days during this time without any break and on a good day can perform 70 cleft lip surgeries in one day in an assembly line format.
He chooses his patients carefully, only those whose operation is simple enough to take one surgery. Something important he said was that he knew his limitations. His surgeries are only aesthetic but by just giving the child an physical appearance with less of a distinct physical deformity raises their chances at leading a normal life in a society that does not make an easy on someone who looks dramatically out of place. He also chooses to perform the surgery on more girls than boys as to give the girls a better chance at life because females with the cleft lip are much less likely to be able to marry and thus leading to a high probability of leaving them destitute later on in life.
Something else I began to wonder about during the film was how and why one is born with a cleft lip. After doing some wikipedia research, I found that a cleft lip is formed while a baby is still on the womb and developing. During the first two months of pregnancy, the shape of the embryos head is formed by five tissues coming together and if these tissues fail to meet a gap appears, thus causing a cleft lip.
"The cause of cleft lip and cleft palate formation can be genetic in nature. A specific variation in a gene that can have abnormalities causing the Van der Woude Syndrome increases threefold the occurrence of these deformities has been identified by Zucchero et al in 2004^[7] as reported by the BBC.^[8]

Environmental influences may also cause, or interact with genetics to produce, orofacial clefting. Some environmental factors that have been studied include: seasonal causes (such as pesticide exposure); maternal diet and vitamin intake; retinoids- which are members of the vitamin A family; anticonvulsant drugs; alcohol; cigarette use; nitrate compounds; organic solvents; parental exposure to lead; and illegal drugs (cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin, etc).

If a person is born with a cleft, the chances of that person having a child with a cleft, given no other obvious factor, rises to 1 in 14. Research continues to investigate the extent to which Folic acid can reduce the incidence of clefting.

In some cases, cleft palate is caused by syndromes which also cause other problems. Stickler's Syndrome can cause cleft lip and palate, joint pain, and myopia. Loeys-Dietz syndrome can cause cleft palate or bifid uvula, hypertelorism, and aortic aneurysm. Cleft lip/palate may be present in many different chromosome disorders including Patau Syndrome (trisomy 13). Many clefts run in families, even though there does not seem to be any identifiable syndrome present." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleft_lip_and_palate)

That said, I highly recommend the film if you should have a chance for not only is it an interesting story about an interesting man, it is also a very well done documentary.
Flying With One Engine
http://www.flyingononeengine.com/

oh, for banter accompanied by space for free ranging breathing particles

I am sure we have all found ourselves in a situation where we are engaged in a conversation with someone who has no concept of what your private space might entail. As they talk they get closer and closer to your face until you feel their breath on your face, yet not in the romantic sense, not in the least. You keep gently taking a step or two back, but to no avail for they keep coming at you, invading the personal sphere you have around you, which, until this instant, you wrongly assumed was acknowledged by all in the invisible and polite sense.

Yet, this person has no concept as to the few inches your reserve for free ranging and roaming particles. Rather this person seems to think that in order to converse with someone, you must have your faces as close as possible without actually locking lips. Now, I don't care how loud the venue or bar you are situated in is, this amount of closeness is not at all necessary for exchanges of words, ideas, and laughs. I am only left to wonder as to why they cannot seem to gauge the personal clean air breathing space I had reserved prior to meeting them, while I have taken so many steps backwards that I am now up against a wall and trapped by an mouth with an endless motor, which keeps moving far to near as a sense of claustrophobia sets in.

You cannot deny having had this experience, and if you can, then I suggest you take a step back from the partner you are involved in friendly banter with.

***

my head rests in the clouds
my heart lies in the ocean
my soul is in the breeze

as we tie and dye into each other

And then she realized she was living a dream, that her dreams were living her, her realities were her dreams, her dreams her reality, living in a world of self created ideologies, being awoken to a world of no control, everything a blur with moments of clarity aiding in the fuzziness, living life between the pixilations, moving from color to color, as dots come into our lives and pass through us, our reality briefly tinted with another’s’ hue, the shades always changing, the colors always mixing as we tie and die into each other, it is not until later that enough space is given from the small circles of proximity and we see a vague picture that comes out of focus as we step further and further back, until the pictures again become the dots of our passing moments and we are swimming through the empty space.
[written april 6, 2008]

the postman still has a job

sometimes i make and mail out postcards to various friends.

Yes! It's true! I still buy stamps, use a pen and ink to write, put my letters in the mailbox, and a day (or more! not a few seconds or more. shocking!) later it finally arrives at its destination (well, that is if all goes according to plan). These actions may sound foreign to some these days, and that saddens me but I hear that the post office workers have a pretty sweet package with benefits and other such perks and I wouldn't want their job to go extinct, for the sake of their benefits of course. So, you see, I am merely protecting the jobs at the post office, which I hear people have all out brawls in bars for, by continuing the strenuous task of physically writing letters.
you may message me your mailing address and I may just mail one to you!

here are some....

"I wonder if we are but shadows on the snow or if we are the bits of briefly twinkling light specs in the snow. Either way, with time we pass, fade, melt but oh how beautiful and magical it all is for an instant!"



"I'm in love with the idea of you"

why hug a tree when you could drink a forest?

When one finds oneself living in an urban environment devoid of trees and other such plentiful green vegetation, one may be brought into the very essence of a pine tree forest by simply drinking gin, and then most, if not all, of ones problems will be solved, as one is transported to the surroundings a lumberjack finds himself (or herself) in, just as a clear piney liquid coats ones throat, causes mayhem in ones liver, and impairs ones judgment. Ahhh, yes, to live among the trees once again! But be careful of splinters as you swallow.

[And yes, that first sentence could be considered a run-on sentence….but I find it’s better to run on in life, rather than stopping yourself short!]

meditations on female concave-eared frogs and donkeys

I was reading this article on physorg.com (check it out if you haven't - always something intriguing there) on how female concave-eared frogs attract mates with ultrasonic sounds (http://physorg.com/news129734195.html) and received a chuckle from this particular paragraph:
"“We have a lot of work to do to figure out whether she directs the signal to one male or whether she lets a bunch of males come and compete, or whether there is any kind of dueting session during which she then decides: ‘OK, You’re my guy. Hop on my back and I’ll take you to the creek!’"Feng said."

If only life were so easy. Males all singing different songs and serenades hoping that a female might hear him and take a liking to his toon, and if that miracle should happen she hollers out to him "Yeah, you're my guy! Hop on my back and man! I'll take you for a riiiide!" And damn, that man would be a lucky and grateful frog for such an incredible female concaved-eared frog! Oh, and how great if we humans were able to communicate with the one we are attracted to with ultrasonic sounds! That would eliminate cell phones, texting, long distance, and the likes, which in the end produce frustration, miscommunication, and large bills. Ultrasonic sound vibrations are much sexier, if not slightly creepy.


I also like how it is the gal who in this scenario is carrying away the guy off into the sunset, because let's be honest the men are not riding up to doors on white horses these days, and seriously nor were they ever! (that scenario was a myth kids!)

But here's an idea, why don't we all just buy ourselves our own donkey and let an ass take us off into the unknown horizon! For we all are asses in the end.