after the thanks

All right, so I give you a blurb about Thanksgiving after all.
My daughter despises mashed potatoes, can't be the genes, 'cause I love them. Despite of this, there she is standing in the steamed up kitchen preparing that very dish.
We had a wild turkey, delicious and an organic farm raised one, traditional. The company was great, the host and hostess fabulous. But I am people shy these days. So is my son. So we took a walk down to the falls to avoid further small-talk for a little while.





On that walk we found this shop - very Americana.
End of blurb.

I hate to fix things ... to start of with, and I only crave Chinese art

There are days when you just have to do it yourself, no other help in sight. So I took apart the old Steinway and fixed some keys. Tedious, the wood is very brittle and easily brakes.
Back in "the shire of hobbit-land" days are getting colder and also "brittle"...that's just how the brake of this season is.
Before you know it snow will cover the fields. That's a good thing though.
The "fixing things" title. It is just so that I love when things just work, and if they don't, I agonize about the demise. I guess that is called procrastination. But sometimes... I get inspired. Today was such a day. Patience is one of the higher virtues - yes??? At least this piano was not made in China. That crap from there I just throw away when it is broken. Actually I try to avoid buying Chinese which in itself is not an easy task.
But hey, they will learn. After they figured that led paint on kid toys is not kosher. They will follow the path of Japan. Remember Japanese products in the 60's and 70's? Total bullshit, cheap ass quality products. But then - ha - they eventually came out with the finest electronics and the most reliable cars. I would call that the "silent revenge" against the empire. Pearl Harbor all over again, this time without Mitsubishi bombers, but spread over time replacing those kamikaze missions.
Hell it worked! Detroit, the headquarters of the three big US car companies looks desolate, abandoned and like a ghetto today. I wish I had had a camera last time around. The pictures would have looked like East-Germany before the break up of the Soviet Union, actually worse - more like Dresden after WW2.
But you wouldn't believe me anyway. So just take a flight and see for yourself. Ah, forget it. It's not worth the cost of petrol to go there. Rambling? Yes I am rambling today. But I will get to the point. China will overcome it's technical and other hurdles - refine it's products a few years down the road (just like Japan did) and thereby become the economic superpower on this globe. I sometimes wonder though if anybody will have cash or credit to buy stuff then.
For now I am content to fix my 1958 upright Steinway by myself.
Enough ramblings? OK, you got it ...

the thanks

Half a mile down the road there are these cows, all male suckers (heifers?) I drive by them daily knowing that they soon end up as cheap minced beef on the shelf of a supermarket. I stop and talk to them - nobody ever talks to them. You gotta talk to animals, they deserve conversation and affection even if they end up being cut into pieces eventually.
So I also give thanks to all the animals who sacrifice their life for human hunger.

whatever it is

I used to teach a couple of courses in NYC, during the time they had that installation in Central Park. One pick I modified and sort of put it into my drawer, thinking of using it as a front-page to my never appearing webpage. What do you think? Will I use this , or does it look entirely tacky?

Last night my daughter woke me up 12:30 or so, needed some help with printing her essays. Needless to say, I couldn't fall asleep after that. Instead I went to the studio and recorded some music, in a horse (corse) voice ... 'cause I got a cold. Tried fiercely to put the results of this on this blog today; but I am just too dumb to to so tonight, and tired.
Tomorrow will be a better day!
************************************************

tommorrow is today :)

I decided to use an other player, it's now located in the sidebar below my profile blurp. There you can hear the song and also other original audio I will post in the future.

OK, here are the original lyrics by me:

Far distant
I waited all day long
just to sing my song
now I'm feeling strong
enough, to say I love you.

Since you will go away
baby I hope and pray
that our hearts want break appart.

Far distant love, when will I see you again
a thousand miles between us is giving me pain
you came out of nowhere, now youre gone -
far distant love.

I know in a month or two,
I'll be running to you
forget about the blues
I love you

And if your mind is clear
and your feelings sincere
then I know we'll be together!

Far distant ...

welcome to my mess

As I look around, I glance onto Raphael's picture "the school of Athens" amongst my mess. It strikes me to be some kind of message. All these philosophers, thinkers, artists, astronomers, physicists, statesman ... gathered in one place!
If only humans these days could do the same, congregate and exchange their knowledge instead of fighting for issues unrelated to the common man.

Here are some quotes from the more prominent people in this picture:

Plato:
As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.

Aristotle:
Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.

Socrates:
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

5 a clock Guinness in Hillsdale

OK then, I'll elaborate.
The guy on the left has a BA from a college in visual arts and is now painting houses. The girl, I don't know her, she is the bartender at the "Mount" (the Mount Washington Hotel).
What's the point of saying this? The painter and her look out towards the second image here, Hillsdale "central", and ponder about their future, each in their own ways. As I was taking the pictures I asked myself the same question. Not so much the philosophical ones like: Where is this world gonna lead to. But more on a personal level, where will the pathways of my life lead me in the next few months?
Heck, I wish I knew!
I guess the myth of the starving artist is not a myth after all.

fall mood

Bare and barren branches
have had a history before they brake, off the trunk.
So no more whining is needed.
Nature took its course and sunk
to the ground what comes to be re-seeded.

Human souls are the same,
most shed history, barren
and broken while memory fades
like nail finger-clippings
lost on foreign soil.
Others - still reach for the sky.

© L. Zay

The frenzy about night shades

As I drive down my road I think to myself, what is this hysteria all about while I was watching the golden leaves scattered on the ground.
Simply put, potatoes, tomatoes and tobacco are all "nightshades" imbued with cancerous stimulants. One and the same family, all of them.
Let's say simply, that "Heinz" ketchup promotes cancerous diseases while advertising the "Lycen" factor to diminish heart disease, which might be correct. What a bargain though.
Now they start to ban smoking within 50 feet of official buildings, post a total smoking ban on campuses - etc, etc....
Who's health are we talking about?
Did anybody ever heard the phrase "mind over matter"?
I personally respect when somebody does not wish to inhale my second hand smoke, and I move away.
But when I then arrive at a parking lot, and several SUV's are idling, and I feel that particular day that perhaps they could shut off their engine during the time their female companions are shopping at WallMart - I only get back blank looks in their faces when I try to tell them that they could perhaps shut off their massive engines for that little while.
So what's that to do with smoking?
Easy, the health benefits gained by smoking bans for the general population is minuscule compared to the obese extractions of fossil fuel pollutants that will hover the whole globe for anyone which has to "inhale" and breathe all these toxins in the air for years to come by the exuberant consumption of western greed.
I mean seriously, a campfire with tofu grilled chunks cooked to perfection, will pollute more than burning four cartons worth of cigarettes.
I guess this legal public exercise is to get the little man down, or get all "the little man's " compliance.
Orwell was dead on, but he was wrong with the title of his book, it should have been called "2007", replacing the "1984".
Little did he know, being self raised on that "Animal Farm."

dogs were barking

Bukowsky once said that dogs were barking,
long into the night.
He stripped the stripper
and plugged his ears with cheap toilet tissue.
What a man.
He is dead now, I'm surprised he made it that long,
booze and general abuse took their toll, end of story.

Dogs are barking, everywhere these days
politicians and crooks want their ways
while we wait to remove cotton tissues
out of our ears and listen to issues
that really matter.
- it's a long way home I would say.

the shire

All right then, I'll have to admit that ...
the trees in the shire are gorgeous. Those shots were taken on my property.
No, it's not that bad here - problem is I am not really "HERE". So tomorrow I'll venture to the island again, pick up all the left over peaces, have a life music party with friends, fix the shingles on the roof that gone blown away in my absence, make peace with the place and then return to the "shire'. Winter-months have to be endured in hobbit style.
If I am quick enough, and inspired, I will post some music from the "music gathering" ,
after the weekend is over and the tape has been edited and I am finally really "here".

the writers almanac on NPR

The Hour
Maybe the moment recurs daily at six, when commuters,
freed from the staring computers,
elbow and bump in unsought intimacy on a station
platform with you, and frustration
rots what is left of your strength. Maybe the hour comes after
dinner, when televised laughter
seeps from a neighboring room; maybe the time is the dead of
night, when you ponder, instead of
dreaming. Whatever the time, you will escape it—by sinking
down with a book, or by drinking
secretly out in the dark studio, or by unbuckling
pants on a stranger, or chuckling,
one with a mob, in a deep theater. Soon, though, the hour
comes to corrode all your power,
pleasure and faith with the damp dread that it daily assigns you.
How you evade it defines you.

Poem: "The Hour" by Michael Lind, from Parallel Lives. © Etruscan Press, 2008

... sometimes NPR feeds me just what I needed to hear.

dividing waters (haiku)

Dividing waters
Create invisible lines
We can not trace them
___________________
OK, that's it - I'm in deep depression after I have left the surroundings of the salty ocean breeze.
People on the "Mainland" act harsh and superegoistic. Whenever I pick up the phone, there is no leisure, no contemplation, just business talk. I am tired of this, but I will endure the winter here in "the shire" - for whatever it is worth. Then I will be back to the island in spring...

gloom of scorpio

I was going to write something here ...
Wasn't it so, that this particular zodiac sign could be redeemed?
Scorpio, the only living thing that can take its own life without outer help or other measures. Fierce, but not graceful.
The eagle on the other hand elevates far above and with keen and unrivaled vision - spots out its pray. No poison involved, just skill.
It has come to my attention that the American Eagle has been swapped, transformed into a scorpio.
Now we will just have to wait and see if and when the US will commit suicide with its own poison and ram the tail into its rear.
The beauty of the eagle once reigned. It shall re-arise when the poison is gone, after the Scorpio's death has been reafirmed.

so what do you do when you come home?

I guess you bring some lobsters from the capital of lobster-fishing. Needles to say, if you have a migraine, those sea carnivores loose their bite and fail to simmer up your appetite. Still, my daughter showed a tremendous amount of appreciation despite her headache and other conditions.
Lobster is an aphrodisiac - so it will help you feel better, no matter what gender you are.

the beginnings of ends

In the beginnings there was the rock, pure granite.
The creases had weathered in time. The story goes, that Vinalhaven, the island off the mid coast of Maine in the US, drifted there all the way from Norway - long, long time ago. Of course that's a myth, but as so many stories have been told, myths add to this picture.
(I can't upload the image of choice tonight, 'cause blogger seems to have come to a halt ... OK, later!)

PS - so yes, Blogger cooperated today! Isn't that stone sexy - at least from a male perspective?

last supper, da Vinci

Want to explore a picture on the web that has the resolution of 16 billion pixels (172181 x 93611)!?!!!!
Click HERE and it will bring you there.
It is pretty spectacular how you can zoom in on minute details, see how Leonardo painted glasses that appear to be transparent etc ...
A journey for visual art lovers!

east and west

Last evening I took these pictures from the rising moon in the east and the setting sun in the west. (Full moon is today)
It made me think of the difference in qualities and why the sun is setting while the moon is rising, a metaphor of todays global situation.
The "moon-forces" are on the rise, while the "sun-forces" are veining. We should try to keep a balance. Think about it, Islam is moon. Turkey (the Ottoman empire) even has a moon on their flag; moon forces are the propellant of the middle east: Division between intelligence and the propulsion of universal compassion. So while the sun-forces drown today, the moon-forces rise. Why is that so?
Simple: The sun has lost its luster, the rays can't keep a balance by themselves. Humans disrespect the sun and with it all earth existence. The West is Not the Best ( mocking the Doors) - the west lost touch in how to meet the east, balanced - with confidence and less violence.
No matter what religious or spiritual background you have, the present issues can't be solved physically and confrontational, but that is what is happening right now in high gear. No, I am not a "peace-freak" and "tree-hugger" at all - don't get me wrong. There are times to die and there are times to live. But it strikes me, that nowadays we have been pushed out of equilibrium by "moon-forces" being on the rise on this planet.
The virtues of moon forces: Diversity, specialization, reflective intelligence, consciousness of rhythms in time.
The virtues of sun forces: Unity, illumination, aural intelligence, consciousness of time in space.
Both are needed, but none should overpower.

balistic

Isn't it interesting to note, that Bush urges for a defensive missile shield system in Europe, one that has failed to work in test runs in the US whilest the space shuttle on the other hand had a hard time going back and forth from the space station?

the long way home

While listening to "Thank you for the music" by Abba, the disgusting pop group from Sweden popular in the 70;s and 80's - I uploaded this picture and thought of roads and bends ahead.
Of course I like Abba now, they make me feel all sentimental about times when I still had emotions and opinions.
These days are gone - except ....
What else is new. The Ottoman empire starts to flex its muscles towards the Kurds. Former prime minister to Pakistan gets almost blown into pieces while returning to her country. California has a case of wild-fire devastation and AHHrnold calls emergency, no real help yet from the Terminator.
The Canadian dollar is worth more than the equivalent in US currency. The Euro trades for more than 1=1.42
Microsoft lost and withdraw their appeal in an EU court.
Apple has record stock marked gains.
What does this all mean?
Absolutely nothing.

Fall in Vinalhaven, Maine, US

On the steps of doom I loom
that's easy to figure, if you know me,
for all others they will have to learn
but it is not of my concern - anymore.

Politicians strive for proliferation and recognition -
it sure looks all the same to me, a wishy-washy addition.
No substance, no promise, no direction.
Is this what they call perfection?
And the house named earth stays barren
while you and I climbed that stairway to heaven
not knowing what to find.

Oh, shut up with your stupid rhymes
it is only the heart that finds,
death or recognition.

not in vain

Ok,ok - you have seen this pitiful rock, leaning at the edge of the Atlantic ocean before. My mistake. But hold on ... I will torture you now with a flood of new pictures. My next post will do that trick.
Cheers, and have a grand Scorpio month ahead!
(as always, click on the pick to see it big)

tears of fall

... and the rain beats on the window pane,
droplets only illuminated by grey skies.
Inside my heart I feel the pain
of outer natures demise.
And if I understand you correctly
not everything dies, just slumbers and takes hold.
We have to be bold and trust the course that life has given us,
a perpetuating force, perhaps this time resounding from an inner source.
__________________________________

I am starting a new sculpture, against all odds of resistance. Indiana lime stone. Strange matter; super homogeneous. I am also tempted to simultaneously start an other form in Vinalhaven granite, just to observe the difference of physical qualities. We'll see what happens.
Fall can be inspiring after all.

putting together little chips to complete a puzzle

Decentralisation is king, it rocks, literally!
The other day a woman appealed a court ruling and lost. She had downloaded one album on a "free site". Now she has to pay $900 and change to the record company PER SONG!!! That's insane - those monopolies (companies) never treated the artists fairly anyway. So what the heck, why should they reap in the profits while we just wish to hear music ...
Anyhow, the stupidity of that woman I can not judge - she was downloading from a centralized database and server, of course that is uncorrectable . Your moves and footprints are all over the place doing this kind of stuff.
I personally download albums before they even have been released in record stores, and I have no shame!
How do I do it? By bits and pieces. A fellow in Japan contributes to the puzzle, so does someone in Austria, Norway, Brazil, US, and so on ... untraceable !!
Mind you, I still buy "albums" (CD's) I like. The ones I love get my "dow", no question.
But again, decentralization is the key here. May it be in agriculture, education, music, and so on ....

c'est tres dure - all good things have to come to an end

All right Caleb, my days are objectively numbered here on "The Rock" even though I just ordered some $200 worth of stone chisels, hopefully coming early next week. I still intend to pound on this granite before I leave. I know it's crazy, but I love "final - haven" - a spared out pocket.
Tomorrow I will get my act together and start planing the catering job I have gotten to serve the party of an American Indian woman and an Aussie guy who recently got married. It will be fun. All the MikMaks will arrive ... pictures to follow:) I still listen to "radio banana" or whatever the heck that Swiss student radio station is called, broadcasting out of Lausanne - while thinking of you and the times we shared on "the rock".


These pictures were taken yesterday in "Old Harbor" of Vinalhaven. The smaller boats load Herring for bait used to catch lobsters. The fisherman finally got mad at me while I was taking pictures floating around and around on my small vessel, they shouted: "you must be from the IRS, go away tax-collector!" I smiled and waved, shouting back NO WAY, I hate that modern form of mobsters!! They smiled back and continued loading.

I came back by sunset and took the last pic from the shoreline ...
(left click on them for a larger image:)

Compassion and the internet

So yes, Buddhist monks are walking in Burma in red robes, their spirituallity burned on streets, tainted crimson.
In Dafour 200,000 people died since last spring, and there is no end in sight to that killing spree.
Iraq, ah - let's not even go there ...
There are lists on the internet to protest the Burmese government; it is like putting your digital signature on a useless cyber list in an illusionary attempt to create virtual change.
Signing internet petitions make no difference, they only make the bourgeoisie petitioner feel better for a day, or a couple of hours. A waste of time and effort in my view. None of you here who read and respond to this, have ever been to Burma, Dafour or Iraq.
So what do you really know? Little to nothing. And why do you even care?
Do you want ... justice? For whom - for you, for your self esteem?

Yes, I have an iota of compassion left for the peoples in trouble around the globe. But internet petitions are the ultimate failure to solve any conflict with satisfaction.
The internet just informs and entertains, is good for networking - but that's about all it can give. Right?

fall falls

Reluctantly I spy into former days at last
summer-loves have gone and past,
so she said back then.
It was an affair of years,
years of exuberance and joy, immaculate.

This summer I visited her together with my wife.
Bonds don't break when your heart is at stake.
For once in my life
I not only take
but let it be,
as is.

visitors

Some people came by I had now clue about, but what the heck, the more the merrier, at least sometimes.
So when are you going to visit the island? You know, this will not last forever! I am already considering to move back to where I belong, to Hobbit-Town.
95% of the islanders either smoke pot or are alcoholics, or both. Not such a fine track record. I'd rather not subscribe to any of these choices. But "The Rock" is a great place nevertheless (that's an other name for Vinalhaven).
So why don't you come up here for a visit as long as the weather is still as gorgeous as it is now.

birds

I shared an Ultra Light Beer tonight with a veteran of the Korean war. His friend was there, a veteran from the second world war.
"We should fight house to house, blow the buildings up as we go, then offer compensation. This is how we could win the war in Iraq."
I disagreed, pointing out that Iraq is not a country, but rather an agglomeration of different tribes, stuck within a border once artificially constructed by the Brits. And then we went on to talk about Israel, an other mostly British flavored product, but I will spare you that part of the conversation for an other time...
So, birds fly over borders and checkpoints without passport or/and visas.
Maybe humans can learn something from them birds.

this one is for Ingrid ... and whoever else cares

I hear a knock at my door, it is 6:30 AM, an unusual time of day to expect visitors. It turns out it is "Doctor Todd" the only mechanic on the island. Every morning he is walking his dogs, passing my house.
"Lukas, I believe there is water in your boat" he said. "How much, can I still bail her out?" I replied. "I don't know, I didn't had a close look. I'll give you a hand once I brought my dogs home."
I rushed to the float to see what was happening. There she was, full of water, the waves dashing in pushed by an unruly sea. I was about to say - forget this boat, let her sink when Todd appeared with his little Wrangler Jeep.
For 45 minutes I was standing in the water up to my balls, a bucket in hand racing against the odds of either getting a heart attack or else loosing the race against the vicious waves.
I won. Smashed up legs and freezing, but no heart attack. All this because I forgot to pull the plug on the self-bailing hull.
Earlier that week the throttle cable on my moped broke (hard to find replacement) - the work situation is uncertain, the mornings are misty and damp.
All images of my present mood.
So you see Ingrid, my motivation to post is somewhat subdued. I am stumbling through the midlife crisis of my island life!

4 down!

Gonzales is the latest senior official to leave the White House as the president approaches the end of his second term in office.
Karl Rove, Bush's most trusted and senior adviser, announced earlier this month that he was stepping down.
Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, agreed in May to step down amid a row over the hiring of his girlfriend.
Donald Rumsfeld, one of the lead architects of the Iraq war, quit as defence secretary after a Republican battering at the polls in November's mid-term election.

I am not a great fan of the Democrats in the US either, but by golly, I can not hide my present content to see those individuals go.

from melting ice to Greek hell-fire

About half of Greece is up in flames, unimaginable!
I have been to Greece several times and adored the beauty, grace, history and friendliness of their people.
As a 14 year old boy I remember taking pictures with a cheap ass plastic camera of the remnants of the Zeus temple in Olympia. I was enchanted and in awe. The fuzzy images of the camera have faded, but my mental remembrance has not. So presently around the town of Zaharo, south of Ancient Olympia in the western Peloponnese, thick smoke blocks out the intense summer sun and can be seen from more than 60 miles away. The blaze broke out Friday afternoon and quickly engulfed villages, trapping dozens of people and killing at least 39. Scores of people were treated in hospitals for burns and breathing problems.
I am devastated - Greece is burning to hell!
My question: Why would people set fires to burn down their own territory - has the world gone insane - do we live amongst total maniacs with a superior death wish? Who are these people?

declining

Six-hundred people posed naked on Switzerland's shrinking Aletsch glacier yesterday for US photographer Spencer Tunick as part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of global warming.
Tunick, perched on a ladder and using a megaphone, directed the volunteers from all over Europe and photographed them on a rocky outcrop overlooking the glacier, which is the largest in the Alps.

Glaciers are sensitive to climate change and have been receding since the start of the industrial age but the pace of shrinkage has greatly accelerated in recent years.
The organizers said that the aim was to “establish a symbolic relationship between the vulnerability of the melting glacier and the human body”.

Fear = haha!

World shares fall on credit fears
World share prices continue to slide in a second day of big losses, amid fears of a global credit crunch... (BBC)August 10 2007
______________________
OK, so what is this? Unlimited growth, unlimited borrowing is not logical or feasible - just a phantom, a warped philosophy and estranged mindset.
Adams was wrong - dead wrong ... as was Darwin. Species do not survive because they are just posing to be the fittest, species thrive when they take care of the balance in their immediate environment.

So on what kind of spaceship is the US cruising? Will they now run out of fuel?
As far as I understand, every US citizen is burdened with a debt of about $20,000 due to the enormous squandering of the government abroad and within ...
Bridges fall and miners die because there is no money to invest into the future, only money for quick fixes. Yes, and instead of investing feasibly, the US government spends 1.3 billion Dollars a month to uphold a lost war. Pathetic!
Imagine how this money could have been used in other ways ... that taxpayers money!
Anyhow, the latest crunch on Wall Street, and all the other financial institutions world wide, only reflect the tip of the iceberg - yet to melt ...

what is that?

Would you like to live in this house?

what is this?