Sunday, July 31, 2005
Jason's been invited
So we have to get on his ass to make sure he writes something about his life and thoughts...bitches.
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Thursday, July 28, 2005
Echinacea study
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is today releasing a study in the New England Journal of Medicine declaring that the most popular herbal product in the United States - Echinacea - does not prevent or ease symptoms of the common cold.
I used to take echinacea when I got colds and have since switched to teas and high doses of vitamins. However, like many other people, I adopted the idea that this herb was a natural healer and could be taken in many forms such as teas, capsules, or liquid drops. Companies sell $155 million in echinacea products every year in the US, and will probably continue to do so because of the persistent belief in folklore and natural remedies.
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I used to take echinacea when I got colds and have since switched to teas and high doses of vitamins. However, like many other people, I adopted the idea that this herb was a natural healer and could be taken in many forms such as teas, capsules, or liquid drops. Companies sell $155 million in echinacea products every year in the US, and will probably continue to do so because of the persistent belief in folklore and natural remedies.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
My new photoblog
I've created a header on the right for our Diaries. I just built a new blog, a photoblog, or as the creator of the site calls them - fotolae (fotola singular) - called Fresh Obsessions. I didn't want to keep posting my images onto this community board of ours, which will hopefully grow (do we want to get together to shift Optimism to a new url, D?) I encourage, I impolore! all of you to build a mior blog of your own and place it in the Diaries section of Optimism. Johnny, you could be pouring out your poetry online and have continuous workshopping of your pieces, if you dare... Cait, I would love to be reading more of your 'snippets' that allow us a glimpse i
nto that wonderfully bright perspective you have. Maybe Jim (of Jim and Amy) can post images of his paintings online and share them with us. Who knows... But, if you guys want to check out what I'm doing with the photography (which will surely improve as I learn more) check out the new site sometime.(Here's a final sampling...)
Peace!
Update: I've updated the links on the right, removing some, adding others. Feel free to do the same with links you'd like to share.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
From the weekend
At the Steeves, in the garden. It was, in fact, planted as a butterfly garden. This monarch flew around me several times and I thought for sure it was going to land on my nose. But alas, it was content to flutter about the flowers and approach me only from the air. The lighting for these pics was enhanced with an editor because the day, like all in the past week, was grey and muggy.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
The Kindgom
I was aroused this 'morning' from a comfy slumber by a knocking on the door. I opened the door to a rush of retina-pounding light and skin-shrivelling heat only to be greeted by an older woman, Alice, and a young gentleman, Veejai, dispatched from the local Kindgom Hall to try to enlighten and/or save my wicked soul. Alice presented me with a copy of The Watchtower and a copy of Awake, two Jehova Witness periodicals that I am well acquainted with from being dispatched by my mother (to save her) by handing a few dollars to our local Jehovah and telling her falsely that my old lady wasn't at home. So, of course, out of Pavlovian reflexes (wink!wink!Jess) built into my mind, I paid Alice two US dollars for two jesUS periodicals at which point she read me a quick bible passage (uh, I believe it was verse uh, chapter duh, Peter Paul and Mary double uh-uh...I don't know) and then backed off for the younger, more zealous Veejai to take a crack at compelling my obviously tainted mind.
(I was standing in the doorway in a wifebeater and denim shorts, squinting at the 'early' morning sunlight, dehydrated and achy from the night before: a case-and-point Sinner/Ne'erDoWell/LostSoul.)
Veejai's strategy to begin chipping away at the petrification of my imprisoned soul was a weak attempt at Socratic dialogue: Have you ever thought about why we go from door to door spreading God's Word? Why, no Veejai, I hadn't found the time inbetween sex with men and worshipping idols to ponder that phenomenon.... Veejai than rattled off some passage (verse A- chapter S- line -S) that related God's command to his subjects to spread the Word and Faith to those neighbors living in systems of wickedness, blah blah blah. (We are living in a system of wickedness but I'm afraid Jesus lately seems to be on the wrong side.) Then Veejai continued with his Socratic 'Dialogue'--fake questions designed so that he can flip his Bible open to the TaDa! inspired answer-- Have you ever thought about what God's Kingdom is? Yeah, sure have on that note Veej, let me tell you about this one night I ingested some and oh, brother, God's Kindgdom descended on the pins in my eyeballs like Angels in miniskirts singing Let the Sunshine In backwards on records of crystal....nevermind. So Veejai talked about the current sad state of affairs (men, women and children dying daily in Iraq was his one and only example-score one point for V) and how those who obeyed God's Word not only would be offered Eternal Salvation from the sufferings of this world in Heaven but would one day inherit an Earth rid of sinners where war, disease, famine and natural disaster would be as out of place as corrupt files on a Tech Geek's hard-drive.
Alice finally gave Veejai the cue to leave, I believe, because she saw the boredom and anguish in my face that his inspired readings were causing. Veejai said he might return (What have I done!) on other weekends to further explore our 'dialogue' / 'Divine Monologue'. At first, the thought of Veejai showing up once or twice a month on a Saturday morning with his Good Book in tow made me cringe with horror but now I actually am looking forward to our next meeting. I can't wait to explain to him in detail my version of the Kingdom: life here on Earth where war and famine are not divine retributions but failures of man (and woman) to practice the humanitarian values we preach; where disease and natural disaster are instrumental in maintaining the equillibrium of this beautiful earth; where life feeds on life feeds on life; where mortality is communitarian and eternal salvation is the recycling of your molecules to keep the Gestalt germinating. I can't wait to use him as a more personal source of information on the Jehovah's history in general but in Brooklyn specifically. I want to know about the Watchtower offices that we view each time we take the Q over the Manhattan bridge. I want to learn about the reticent and fortressed Kingdom Hall down on Flatbush Ave--what happens behind the scenes there? Do you have any mysterious initiation rites? Would I find any celebrity names on your roll-call? Is Mel Gibson the Second Coming? What makes you think Allah or Krishna were false prophets? Because your book was inscribed by the fiery hand of God and theirs is just ink printed on paper?
Next time I see Veejai, he is going to have to engage in some serious Socratic Dialogue whether he likes to or is prepared to or not.
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(I was standing in the doorway in a wifebeater and denim shorts, squinting at the 'early' morning sunlight, dehydrated and achy from the night before: a case-and-point Sinner/Ne'erDoWell/LostSoul.)
Veejai's strategy to begin chipping away at the petrification of my imprisoned soul was a weak attempt at Socratic dialogue: Have you ever thought about why we go from door to door spreading God's Word? Why, no Veejai, I hadn't found the time inbetween sex with men and worshipping idols to ponder that phenomenon.... Veejai than rattled off some passage (verse A- chapter S- line -S) that related God's command to his subjects to spread the Word and Faith to those neighbors living in systems of wickedness, blah blah blah. (We are living in a system of wickedness but I'm afraid Jesus lately seems to be on the wrong side.) Then Veejai continued with his Socratic 'Dialogue'--fake questions designed so that he can flip his Bible open to the TaDa! inspired answer-- Have you ever thought about what God's Kingdom is? Yeah, sure have on that note Veej, let me tell you about this one night I ingested some and oh, brother, God's Kindgdom descended on the pins in my eyeballs like Angels in miniskirts singing Let the Sunshine In backwards on records of crystal....nevermind. So Veejai talked about the current sad state of affairs (men, women and children dying daily in Iraq was his one and only example-score one point for V) and how those who obeyed God's Word not only would be offered Eternal Salvation from the sufferings of this world in Heaven but would one day inherit an Earth rid of sinners where war, disease, famine and natural disaster would be as out of place as corrupt files on a Tech Geek's hard-drive.
Alice finally gave Veejai the cue to leave, I believe, because she saw the boredom and anguish in my face that his inspired readings were causing. Veejai said he might return (What have I done!) on other weekends to further explore our 'dialogue' / 'Divine Monologue'. At first, the thought of Veejai showing up once or twice a month on a Saturday morning with his Good Book in tow made me cringe with horror but now I actually am looking forward to our next meeting. I can't wait to explain to him in detail my version of the Kingdom: life here on Earth where war and famine are not divine retributions but failures of man (and woman) to practice the humanitarian values we preach; where disease and natural disaster are instrumental in maintaining the equillibrium of this beautiful earth; where life feeds on life feeds on life; where mortality is communitarian and eternal salvation is the recycling of your molecules to keep the Gestalt germinating. I can't wait to use him as a more personal source of information on the Jehovah's history in general but in Brooklyn specifically. I want to know about the Watchtower offices that we view each time we take the Q over the Manhattan bridge. I want to learn about the reticent and fortressed Kingdom Hall down on Flatbush Ave--what happens behind the scenes there? Do you have any mysterious initiation rites? Would I find any celebrity names on your roll-call? Is Mel Gibson the Second Coming? What makes you think Allah or Krishna were false prophets? Because your book was inscribed by the fiery hand of God and theirs is just ink printed on paper?
Next time I see Veejai, he is going to have to engage in some serious Socratic Dialogue whether he likes to or is prepared to or not.
Monday, July 11, 2005
This is at the point that the Prospect Park stream called the Ambergill falls into the appropriately named Lullwater, just next to the old boathouse, now the Audobon Center.
I love the detail I can get with this camera!
Yeah, I'm not crazy about the limited options I have for placing images in this format, but, for now, it'll have to do...
Who's the Man?
I am the Man! I rule!
Camera has arrived, and I am victorious!
A little experimentation in the house, in Sigi's garden, and now I'm off to the Botanical Gardens for the afternoon to really get into the manual and learn about all the photographic terms that I really have no idea what they mean...aperture, exposure, metering, white balance...etc.
Well, the first image just failed to upload to this site, probably because the TIF file was too large, so more reading needs to be done with that...
Ah, well, I'll have to figure that out....
Peace y'all!
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Camera has arrived, and I am victorious!
A little experimentation in the house, in Sigi's garden, and now I'm off to the Botanical Gardens for the afternoon to really get into the manual and learn about all the photographic terms that I really have no idea what they mean...aperture, exposure, metering, white balance...etc.
Well, the first image just failed to upload to this site, probably because the TIF file was too large, so more reading needs to be done with that...
Ah, well, I'll have to figure that out....
Peace y'all!
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Damian's ideas for the blog +
Alright, D, I liked what you were talking about recently with changing the url address of our blog. What I'd also like to have, but not sure how to go about doing, is for each of us to have individual 'journal' or 'diary' sections that other people can go into and read at leisure and a main site that we could post to that everyone would read. Also, blogger just announced that we can now post images to the blog very easily. The image icon on the tool bar just below the Title cell allows us to do this...just like this! Awww...isn't my baby the hottest thing ever! What I'm looking forward to doing is having my own - or, part of this, just as my 'diary' - photoblog, where all the photos that that I'll be taking with my new camera (!!!) can be uploaded and shared online. Not that I'm expecting to get much traffic (as if this gets much) but it'll be a good documentation of my summer at the very least. So, maybe we can work on that. Peace y'all!
Friday, July 08, 2005
Saturday night dinner
Hey all,
This is to let you know that we're having a dinner party Saturday night at the Brooklyn place, and anyone's who's interested can come. We are up for anything, but the feeling will hopefully be mellow. Bring a dish if you'd like, or a bottle of wine, or good beer maybe. Johnny and I will be marinating and cooking!
There's a show over at the Prospect Park Bandshell we were talking about checking out too before we head back to the apartment. Lauren, really hope you can come in; we're sure to still be up if by the time you get down here.
Cheers!
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This is to let you know that we're having a dinner party Saturday night at the Brooklyn place, and anyone's who's interested can come. We are up for anything, but the feeling will hopefully be mellow. Bring a dish if you'd like, or a bottle of wine, or good beer maybe. Johnny and I will be marinating and cooking!
There's a show over at the Prospect Park Bandshell we were talking about checking out too before we head back to the apartment. Lauren, really hope you can come in; we're sure to still be up if by the time you get down here.
Cheers!
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Olympics!
I can't ever remember the bid for the Olympics being quite so outrageous and spectacular. Then again, I don't think I had ever been in two of the cities that were furiously attempting to host them. I've been living in New York almost a full year now and I sort of remember back in the fall that we (I consider myself a full-fledged New Yorker now) had bumper stickers on subway cars and adverts here and there - which can still be seen around town.
And then I went to London in February and had a taste of how it was done right. This city was in full throttle about getting the 2012 Summer Olympics in their town. Everywhere you looked something was building up momentum and drive to bring it there. I had mentioned it once back then while I was visiting Caitie. The large tent that they had erected in the middle of Trafalgar's Square; a free viewing of the overarching plan they had created for the city and where each event would take place. This installation put me over the top (and not just because of the yummy fungi in my tummy). Well, I described it in that post and if you want a descrition of it, check it out at the archive I just linked to.
And lo and behold, front page NYTimes has celebrations going on today in Trafalgar's Square after the declaration that London would host the 2012 Olympics. And in all honesty, I'm glad. Us New Yorkers had a multi-section display in the Times showing how the city would change if we got the bid. London was already changing. I'm living here and it felt blase; Londeners seemed to me to have incorporated it into their lives. Caitie, correct me if I'm wrong on these accounts, being that my impression is 4 months old and only of a few days worth of time. You lived there for 10 months. I'm more psyched that they got than if NY had. I would have had to question the judges ethics and Bloomberg's wallet if NY had gotten the bid.
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And then I went to London in February and had a taste of how it was done right. This city was in full throttle about getting the 2012 Summer Olympics in their town. Everywhere you looked something was building up momentum and drive to bring it there. I had mentioned it once back then while I was visiting Caitie. The large tent that they had erected in the middle of Trafalgar's Square; a free viewing of the overarching plan they had created for the city and where each event would take place. This installation put me over the top (and not just because of the yummy fungi in my tummy). Well, I described it in that post and if you want a descrition of it, check it out at the archive I just linked to.
And lo and behold, front page NYTimes has celebrations going on today in Trafalgar's Square after the declaration that London would host the 2012 Olympics. And in all honesty, I'm glad. Us New Yorkers had a multi-section display in the Times showing how the city would change if we got the bid. London was already changing. I'm living here and it felt blase; Londeners seemed to me to have incorporated it into their lives. Caitie, correct me if I'm wrong on these accounts, being that my impression is 4 months old and only of a few days worth of time. You lived there for 10 months. I'm more psyched that they got than if NY had. I would have had to question the judges ethics and Bloomberg's wallet if NY had gotten the bid.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
A third creation path...
The Kansas School Board has been in legal battles over what theory of the beginnings of the Universe should be taught to students: the theory of Evolution or the Intelligent Design theory (creationist). Bobby Henderson has recently exposed himself as a Flying Spaghetti Monsterist and is justly demanding that his theory be taught in the Kansas schools as well...
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Saturday, July 02, 2005
Goodbye to London
I fell in love with London last weekend. I was walking across the Millenium bridge, post-Globe Theater glow in my face, the pure soliloquies of Pericles' Marina dancing about my head.....it was about 10 pm and not yet so dark, but low enough so each bridge along either side (lined up row after row, Millenium, Jubilee, Embankment, London, Tower, and on and on) were lit, twinkling in the night. It was warm, I had bare shoulders. Gentle breezes ruffled the skirts and pant legs of couples strolling arm and arm in front of me - they too were drinking in the evening. Some were stopped along the bridge, leaning, perched on the rails to whisper their nothings above the slow, dark Thames. It was the first time all year I had wanted to jump into that river, to feel its green silkiness awash over my skin, the water (i imagined) barely a few degrees cooler than the surrounding air. Yes, that same river from which an entire wing of the Tate Modern had dredged, gleaned, stolen, procured, discovered a trove of delights to use in exhibition----bottle caps, love letters, toilet bowls, hundreds upon thousands of ceramic tile shards----oh the mosaic they would make! ----- dog tags, baby toys, forks, knives, spoons................that same river would I plunge its depths. Only that night I think. Only that walk across that bridge, with the moon so low on the horizon. And I wanted to call my loved ones to tell them how wonderful I felt and how beautiful they were. And it turned out I didn't have to because ten minutes later they called me, and I shared with them the night of my smallest, bravest sister's high school graduation, whose rich and earthy song reached me in my bed, at 3 am, across an entire ocean.
