Wheels up for Japan and Korea

Big Frank is heading into the setting sun in order to be in the land of the rising sun. That's how it has to be done. As he heads over the Pacific to Japan he will enter the future. So for the next couple weeks or so - if any of you readers would like to know what it's like (the future), send me your questions - I'll answer to the best of my abilities.

Going to Japan is always auspicious in one respect or another, so Big Frank looks forward to the change - there's always something about being in Japan, or else being gone from the U.S. that results in change. Not sure what it will be, but Big Frank is open to whatever comes.

As for cloud sightings - Big Frank saw two last night:

1. An upside down beluga whale.

2. The face of a boxer with one eye swollen shut.

Look up

Big Frank suggests that you raise your eyes skyward. Not now - all you're going to see is the ceiling. However, when you step outside look up and see what's happening up there. There is an ever-changing display of clouds above you - always! They take on thousands of different shapes and offer a never-ending source of delight. One good way to demonstrate how much you value your life is by remembering and cerishing the small parts of life. Clouds may not be all that small, but they generally play a small part in most people's lives. Look up, capture that sky-scape, describe the clouds, and add value to your life. Annie Dillard in her wonderfully odd book For the Time Being, which, among other things deals with birth defects, human population statistics, Eastern European Judaism, sand, the life and work of Teilhard de Chardin (paleontologist and priest), Emperor Qin and his clay soldiers also writes quite a bit about CLOUDS. Dillard brings together a steady stream of reports of clouds, recorded by John Muir, John Constable, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and many others. “Why seek dated clouds?” Dillard asks. “Why save a letter, take a snapshot, write a memoir, carve a tombstone?”

If you really want to get into this cloud stuff then go to The Cloud Appreciation Society. They have a wonderfully large collection of photos on clouds categorized by cloud types. The society has members from countries all over the world and they all send in photos, creating a mind-boggling sampling of those white fluffy formations that ride above you - always. Look up - there they are. If you look every day you will, as the people in Dillard's book, find recognizable figures. Do you remember as a kid lying on your back and pointing out rabbits, and elephants, and mountains, and your uncle's nose, and the outlines of countries, etc. etc. Clouds are still at it - go take a look.

Nonevents?

Paul Graham works the everyday. One especially interesting set of juxtapostions is between New York and North Dakota. Take a look at his archive for this set of photos. It is from his new 12-volume book project titled "a shimmer of possibility". The work is arranged in a set of picture sequences of "non-events". If you follow the link above - go through Pittsburgh and there is New York/North Dakota. This is the stuff of life that most people don't take a second look at. Graham does and he reminds Big Frank of Walt Whitman's catalogues and some of what Dennis O'Driscoll has written.

Whitman in his "Song of Myself" catalogues the events of his day

"The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
The carnival of sleighs, the clinking and shouted jokes and the pelts of
snowballs;
The hurrahs for popular favorites . . . . the fury of roused mobs,
The flap of the curtained litter -- the sick man inside, borne to the
hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the blows and fall,
The excited crowd -- the policeman with his star quickly working his
passage to the centre of the crowd;
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,"

Now here is Dennis O'Driscoll from the poem "Forever" in his collection of poems entitled "RealityCheck".

"Forever the girl upending the nearly empty crisp packet and
savouring life to the full, to the last salty cheese-and-onion-
flavoured crumb.

Forever the old ladies who smile at babies like politicians and
suspect the meter reader may not really be the meter reader.

Forever a freckled builder in high-vis jacket swinging his lunch
bag as he clocks in at the chipboard hoarding.

Forever the teenagers who can't pass up a hat display wihtout
trying on preposterous headgear in a department store.

Forever the tall schoolboy with ponytail and full-length leather
coat. And forever the small one, pate shaved almost bald, nursing
a cigarette like a sore finger."

These are the stuff of life - the non-events of life:

"Forever. And ever. All going well."

On and On

"I'll let things be what they are, sort of."
---- John Ashberry

Letting it Be Here, Boss

So I decided to let things be what they are.
That sort of freed everything up and I
immediately noticed that nothing had really changed.
The same old worries still dangled on hangers ready
to be put on when the time was right; and the
tentative plans for radical changes of a positive sort
were still in the wings, ready to be implemented - but later.
The larger expanse of matter and life seemed to be
carrying on as always: giant balls of rock and gas
swirling around accepting the license to continue.
The wind was gratefully filling all kinds of gaps,
the inhabitants of which were scurrying and poking
around: thoraxes and the occasional fur and feathers.
All accepting the infusion of protons to show each other their stuff,
and (supposedly) there was also lots of dark junk,
but nobody could see any of that (just as always).
The noise (still there) was reduced to very small waves, sort of,
that was fed into our ears pretty much all the time
when I wasn't being distracted by internal alerts.
Inside the fluids were pumping, the vegetables were secured,
and millions of messages were nervously headbound relating how things are out there,
and just as many reactions were being allowed to assert their opinions
concerning all of this - much was conflicted - and I let both sides
have their say, as it were, letting them squabble it out in the same
old way buying in one minute to their having their external way and
then getting pretty pissed off that they didn't have more consideration for
how it all affected me. And me, the same old interloper both
part of and apart from the show - as always - sort of anyway.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Impressive

Impresive Though It Seems

Impressive though it seems I know
This nut's too hard to crack.
Impressive though it seems I know
They won't be coming back.

Impressive though it seems I know
The looks will fade; it sags.
Impressive though it seems I know
All work in time's like slag.

Impressive though it seems I know
The leap of faith will fall.
Impressive though it seems I know
You'll wait and wait - no call.

Impressive though it seems I know
The touch will haunt me soon.
Impressive though it seems I know
Its memory's a loon.

Impressive though it seems I know
The idea's full of crap.
Impressive though it seems I know
The song won't hold you rapt.

Impressive though it seems I know
The view will leave you cold.
Impressive though it seems I know
You're still far far from sold.

Impressive though it seems I know
High spirits come and go
Impressive though it seems I know
The benchmark's much to low.

Impressive though it seems I know
What stirs you now will slake
Impressive though it seems I know
All movement has a brake.

Impressive though it seems I know
I know I know but naught
Impressive though it seems I know
I know I know it's not.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

A Lover's Discourse

Big Frank has been reading Roland Barthes' "A Lover's Discourse". Here Barthes means by 'discourses' a kind of running around - comings and goings - the wanderings of the lover's mind. He calls these 'figures': "something that has been read, heard, felt". The entire book (an alphabetical list of these figures - a kind of encyclopedia, as it were) catalogues these 'figures' with literary, philosophical, and psychological references. It covers some 80 of his 'figures', everything from absence to affirmations to embarrassment to magic to ravishment and will-to-possess. Anyone who is 'there' or has been 'there' will recognize these figures.

Here's from the section entitled "The Uncertainty of Signs".

He begins with a quotation from Balzac:

"I look for signs, but of what? What is the object of my reading? Is it: am I loved (am I loved no longer, am I still loved)? Is it my future that I am trying to read, deciphering in what is inscribed the announcement of what will happen to me, according to a method which combines paleography and manticism? Isn't it rather, all things considered, that I remain suspended on this question, whose answer I tirelessly seek in the other's face: What am I worth?"

Then from Freud:

"Signs are not proofs, since anyone can produce false or ambiguous signs. Hence one falls back, paradoxically, on the omnipotence of language: since nothing assures language, I will regard it as the sole and final assurance: I shall no longer believe in interpretation. I shall receive every word from my other as a sign of truth; and when I speak, I shall not doubt that he, too, receives what I say as the truth. Whence the importance of declarations; I want to keep wresting from the other the formula of his feeling, and I keep telling him, on my side, that I love him: nothing is left to suggestion, to divination: for a thing to be known, it must be spoken; but also, once it is spoken, even very provisionally, it is true."

Have Your Say

"Say that there are too may buts in the sky today.
Say that we need each other off and on to see how it feels."
---- John Ashberry

Say

Say that you are troubled at the thought of indiscretions.
Say that 'indestructible' comes not lightly off your tongue.
Say however many times you abandon yourself when you
Turn around - you've come back: here you are!

Say the most you ever wanted was achievable.
Say that you don't believe the pain will go away.
Say that even when you stop to think you don't stop.
Turn around; you've hit the mark. You're there.

Say the roundabout way is the shortest way to go.
Say that once upon a time it was the time of your life.
Say that all in all it just couldn't be helped.
Turn around; and claim the fact that it is yours.

Say the only real mistake was the one you didn't make.
Say that while you may have grumbled you didn't let on.
Say time and time again you got a second chance.
Turn around; it's your time now - it always was.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Can you come out and play??

Big Frank likes to play; there he's said it. Now all of you say that word 10 times: play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play. Are you even capable of collecting all the images and connotations that come to mind, that resonate with that sound. It brings back the joy of youthful play, and stirs something in your gut just to say it. Play is so often abandoned with youth, and it needn't be - shouldn't be.

"The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery."
---- Erik H. Erikson

"Play is hard to maintain as you get older. You get less playful. You shouldn’t, of course."
---- Richard Feynman

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."
---- Plato

"In our play we reveal what kind of people we are."
---- Ovid

So it should be no wonder that there a National Institute for Play. It was founded by Stuart Brown, who interviewed thousands of people to catalogue different kinds of play. Through his research he demonstrated "the active presence of play in the accomplishments of the very successful and also identified negative consequences that inevitably accumulate in a play-deprived life".

Play is so valuable that business is keen to put it to work. Watch Tim Brown, CEO of a design firm Ideo talking about play at the 2008 Serious Play conference.

Studying play? Teaching play? What has happened to the world - and to adults that they no longer know how to play? Evidently not because there are therapies out there to bring play back: Play Therapy with Adults is just one of many.

Play can be serious, but seriousness cannot be play. It has no function, but serves many. It is for children, but not only. So get out and play. Do something you choose to do that give you joy from doing it: it can be amusing, pretend, imaginary, interpersonal, or many other things, but it's always, always, always fun.

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."
---- George Bernard Shaw

What if?

Routine Breaker

Sleep on the wrong side of the bed,
And dream in black and white.
Look in your window from the outside
And say, “I wish I lived there.”

Leave the cap off your toothpaste,
And bathe with the light off.
Then stepping out, let the air
Dry you and don’t get dressed.

And if these are too much of a break,
Then take smaller ones and
Don’t pull up your socks, but do
Leave the crumbs on the counter.

Surprise someone with a call;
Take the long way to work and
Get there early. Leave the computer
Off all day and talk to people.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Snowshoeing

Big Frank went out on the snowshoeing trail today. The weather was a little on the warm side; the trail was mostly firm, and the forest was very very quiet. His tramping companion was Magne, who, unlike, Big Frank, managed to stay on his feet the whole time. It was a great day.

A Master of The Very Short Story

Because it's Valentine's Day here's an apt quotation from Margaret Atwood: "The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love."

She is well known for her novels and poetry, but she also wrote one of the best collections of very short stories Big Frank has ever read. It is called The Tent, and the imaginative worlds that she creates in that tent are entrancing. Some are obviously stories, and some are imaginative essays and some are somewhere in between. Below is one of Big Frank's favorites from The Tent.

Time Folds

by Margaret Atwood

Time folds, he said, meaning that as time goes on and on it buckles, in the extreme heat, in the extreme cold, and what is long past becomes closer. You can demonstrate this by pleating a ribbon and sticking a pin through: Point Two, once yards away from Point One, now lies just beside it. Is time/space like an accordion, but without the music? Was he making a statement about hard physics?

Or was he saying: Time folds its wings, at long last. Time folds its tents and silently steals away. Time folds you in its folds, as if you were a lamb and the lack of time a wolf. Time folds you in the blanket of itself, it folds you tenderly and wraps you round, for where would you be without it? Time folds you in its arms and gives you one last kiss and then it flattens you out and folds you up and tucks you away until it's time for you to become someone else's past time, and then time folds again.

Another very short story

Back In The Old Fogie Days
by Big Frank Dickinson

Back in the old fogie days, everything was in black and white. The only color was in dreams; and people looked forward to going to sleep at night to look at that extraordinary palette of color offerings that they met nowhere else in their lives. Of course, they were not able to really talk about these colors (that word did not exist back then) all languages – even Inuit – had only two “quasi-colors” to talk about: black and white; and, of course, their combination: gray. Their dream conversations went something like this:

- I had this great dream last night. I was on a ship and the water was a kind of shimmering gray.
- Shimmering gray?
- Yeah, it was not really gray – it looked completely different from gray but it wasn’t black or white either. It was a happy gray and at the same time it was a sad gray.
- Oh, OK, I think I know what you ‘re talking about. I once had a dream where I cut myself and that shimmering gray came out of my hand. Is that the gray you’re talking about?
- Well, I’m not really sure. I’ve never cut myself in a dream. But that doesn’t seem like it would be a happy gray, does it?

Of course, kids can somewhat understand this because they have seen black and white photographs in art books, or their in the photos in their parents’ attic. And it also turns out that most kids nowadays actually dream only in black and white. So with some accuracy it can be said that the old fogie days are being duplicated in the dreams of the youth. Their dream conversations go something like this:

- Like, I was dreaming last night that I was on this . . .like ship, and the water – get this – was gray!
- No way, man – gray?
- Yeah, and I was like, “Where am I, in my dad’s memories, or what?”
- Cool – in the old man’s memories!
- Yeah, it was like I had taken a trip back; you know, like time travel!
- How cool is that? Dreams as time travel. . . . Hey, wait a minute. I think I dream in black and white too. Last night I was flying in the sky and it was . . GRAY! So was I – like – going back in time too?
- Totally – Dude – totally!

A Very Short Story

Will The Universe Instruct Him?
By Big Frank Dickinson

- I live with a man who sits in a chair and is mostly not there.
- And what is it that you did before you joined him there?
- Well, I've always been quite spiritual. Actually, at one time even religious. I was actually a Methodist minister who tended my flock and dispensed spiritual bromides.
- Oh, are you still religious now?
- Now, like I said, now I'm spiritual, but not religious. The universe is my god now; not some dusty book whose main protaganist has a beard and sits on a cloud.
- But you live with a man who mostly sits in a chair, as I understand. Is he religious?
- This is a temporary relationship. We don't really share any interests with each other, but he needs me. Actually he's an invalid; that's pretty much why he just sits in that chair. I pretty much support him with my settlement.
- Settlement?
- Yes, like I said, I was a minister and the church had to settle with me because of some injury that I suffered from their congregation.
- Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
- Don't be - they deserved it.
- Deserved it?
- Yes, having to pay me that settlement for what they did to me. It was horrible; I'm pretty much unable to function normally.
- But I thought it was your . . . man who was disabled.
- He's disabled, I'm scarred.
- Oh, so what is it that you do now?
- I write and give readings.
- Readings?
- Yes, I can channel.
- Channel?
- Yeah, you know - connect with someone and have special insights into them.
- Oh? What kind of insights?
- Well, I get images and words and they just come to me.
- Do you think that you could channel me?
- Sure would you like me to do that?
- Well, I've never been channelled before what's it like?
- I'll tell you what is in the channel; you might find it interesting - I've done this for a lot of people. They always tell me that what I have to say is pretty amazing. I don't know how I do it - it just comes to me.
- So what do I have to do?
- Nothing, just listen. OK, I'm going to close my eyes and then. . . I can see a picnic table and it has an old lamp on it. Maybe a lamp that is somehow connected with a relative - a female relative. Do you have a female relative?
- Yeah, lots of them.
- I thought so.
- Let's see . . . Oh, there is lots of blue and some broken pieces of pottery. You broke something and you can't put it back together. Does that mean anything to you.
- No, not really.
- You're not being very cooperative here. I'm not sure that I can continue this channeling if I'm going to be picking up this negative energy.
- Oh, OK; well keep going. What else?
- It's cloudy now - darkness. I see confusion and uncertainty. A plan, . . . no a map but you're not sure which way is north. There seems to be a problem with direction. In the corner there is a compass, but you are ignoring it. Yes, I see an open window with curtain flowing out it and you can't keep it inside. Outside a crow - a large one with a branch in its mouth. This is a very powerful image.
- Oh?
- Is that all you can say? So, what do you think? What does this mean to you?
- Oh, well. It really doesn't mean anything to me. None of those images are really any part of any memories or dreams of mine . . . not really anything. Is that what you mean?
- Well, if you are going to be sceptical . . . Really! You do need to acquire some social skills. You know I was doing this channelling for you because you asked. What kind of gratitute is that? I really think that your social interaction is extremely lacking - and it is pulling me down. I feel . . . wounded. That's enough . . . I'm not going to continue if you are going to be like that. I really have to go. And . . .maybe one day the universe will sit you down and teach you a thing or two. But I'm not going to. I'm afraid I must be going.
- Oh?

Unusual partners in music

The grammy for the best album of the year went to Robert Plant and Allison Kraus - not exactly a musical couple that immediately springs to mind when you think of musical partners, but the product of their collaboration is magic: listen to "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) - that's the producer T-Bone Burnett playing guitar on the video. As a result, Big Frank got to thinking about other unlikely pairs. One that he has been listening to a lot lately is Eddie Harris and John Scofield. Harris is probably best known as the saxophonist who first plugged in his sax! He is the funk master, and I guess when you think of him in this way it perhaps makes sense for him to play with Scofield - one of the trinity of GREAT jazz guitarist along with Pat Methany and Bill Frisell. Here's probably the best cut off that their CD "Hand Jive": I"ll Take Les. I defy anyone to listen to this and not bite their lower lip or bob their head. Big Frank has always been a big fan of Eddie Harris. His first Eddie Harris album, put out in 1970, and now only available in the used vinyl bins - is Come On Down. It was recorded in Miami; hence the big orange in place of Harris' head on the cover.

Other unusual but successful pairs? How about Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello - try a listen to "Painted From Memory". Then why not add Bill Frissel to the mix playing the above two's songs from that CD with Costello, Casandra Wilson and add Allison Krauss' brother Victor Krauss in "The Sweetest Punch". By the way, who else has ever taken someone else's album and recorded every song on it? But - that's a different question for a different time, isn't it? Let's not get distracted. And those previous combinations was getting a little incestuous, so how about something completely different: Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler playing some great finger picking stuff (listen to "I'll See You In My Dreams") on "Neck and Neck". Listen to them play Lennon's Imagine on this youtube clip.

If anyone out there would like to suggest their own unusual partners - have at it.

300 million years = Sedona

Big Frank has been enjoying the beauties of Arizona - especially Sedona. From the the attached photos that Big Frank took you can see the spectacular beauty of the Sedona area. When coupled with bright sunshine and clear blue skies, it is difficult to think of a better place to be.

Sedona is named after Sedona Miller Schnebly, the wife of the first the area's postmaster T. Carl Schnebly. The statue of Sedona in front of the library has her protrayed not only as a babe, but I would guess from the apple in her hand - a teacher too. T. Carl has a lot of the area named after him and a distinctive geological feature: the Schnebly Hill Formation - the characteristic red hills that mark Sedona: including Bell Rock, Courthouse Rock, Cathedral Rock, and Coffee Pot Rock. These are made of red sandstone that was depostited around 300 million years ago, then water drained from the present Colorado plateau brought more sand along with iron traces. Those iron traces in the oxygen rich air of the Permian Period oxidized leaving the sand red. Then with some uplifting cracks and millions of years of erosion - the red rocks of Sedona!

It's a great place to go hiking and biking. The views are never-ending, the sky blue cap covers you, and you can feel the age of the place with every step you take. This combination has brought art dealers, new age spiritualists, movie stars, polititians, and Big Frank (well at least for a short time anyway). It is a place that goes home with you and buoys you up like a geological uplift.

Wheels up for Arizona

Big Frank is heading south - to Arizona for a few days in the sun.

And now for something completely different: here's a song that will
touch your heart. This is John Lennon singing that classic "Stand By Me". Many have done it, but he does a great job and I would imagine that most do not link Lennon with this song; he recorded it on his 1975 album "Rock 'n' Roll". The original goes back to a gospel tune written in 1905 by Charles Tindley. But it has been covered by a whole slew of people, including The Staple Singers, Muhammad Ali, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Rye Cooder, and Seal - among others. According to the BMI it is the 4th most played song of the 20th century (the top three in order are "You've Lost That Lovin Feelin", "Never My Love" and "Yesterday"). Have a listen and enjoy. The chord progression in this song (I vi IV V) actually came to be called the 50s progression or 'Stand By Me' changes.

The real size of the mind

Wallace Stevens knew a thing or two - here's one thing that he knew about the dwarf of a mind that we create for ourselves.

The Dwarf

Now it is September and the web is woven.
The web is woven and you have to wear it.

The winter is made and you have to bear it,
The winter web, the winter woven, wind and wind.

For all the thoughts of summer that go with it
In the mind, pupa of straw, moppet of rags.

It is the mind that is woven, the mind that was jerked
And tufted in straggling thunder and shattered sun.

It is all that you are, the final dwarf of you,
That is woven and woven and waiting to be worn,

Neither as mask nor as garment but as a being,
Torn from insipid summer, for the mirror of cold,

Sitting beside your lamp, there citron to nibble
And coffee dribble . . . Frost is in the stubble.

----Wallace Stevens

Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues

Big Frank has been reading aphorisms again (more from the king of aphorims - Magne). Here are a few of Big Franks's favorites from Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, 18th century soldier and author - sometimes called the modern stoic. Of his many gems Big Frank chooses these. Why these? Well, because these resonate - right now.

The head does not understand the aims of the heart.

Patience is the art of hoping.

It is the heart's function to, fix the order of our aims, and that of the reason to pursue them.

We do not suspect our feelings of misleading us.

Self-interest is the guiding principle of prudence.

Solitude tries chastity very hard.

Men's passions are so many open roads that lead nowhere.

We rarely speak or write what we think.

If anyone accuses me of contradicting myself, I reply: Because I have been wrong once, or oftener, I do not aspire to be always wrong

Love is stronger than love of self, since one can love a woman in spite of her disdain.

The Enemy Face to Face

Big Frank has met the enemy and he is bad. On the left is an electron microscopic view of a rhinovirus - cause of the common cold. There are actually hundred of these little monsters - each of which will given a cold. These viruses are extremely small - it would take millions lined up end to end to fit within one inch, and if you covered the back of a postage stamp (please do not actually try this at home) it could infect the entire planet!

So one (or more of these guys) got to Big Frank. The typical method of infection is airborne - or via Big Frank's own hands and then onto his nostrils or mouth. They then attach to the back of the throat and start to multiply. That's why it always starts with a sore throat. Usually these viruses don't go much beyond the throat, sinuses, or upper respiratory system because they can't really take the higher temperatures much above 33 degrees celsius. Within 2 or 3 days of the infection, swelling occurs and in response your mucous membranes in the nasal passages begin to secret large volumes of fluid. The battle is on as the cold virus propogates madly and the immune system tries to flush it all out with coughing, sneezing, and mucous flows from the nose. The good guys pretty much always win, but it's not pleasant.

Big Frank is calling this his "Lucky Cold" because it's kind of like when someone keeps hitting you on the head bwith a stick - it feels so good when they stop. Well, Big Frank is on the mend and tomorrow - or maybe the next day - it'll feel so good!

And just because knowledge is power; how about a few misconceptions about the common cold:

1. Chills and dampness have nothing to do with catching colds.
2. Don't necessarily feed or starve a cold - listen to your body; but do drink lots of liquids (wash it out.)
3. Kissing is OK - Kissing rarely infects. During colds, the virus generally stays in the nose and throat. The mouth remains remarkably virus-free. However, no rubbing noses!
4. Neither chicken soup, nor megadoses or vitamin C, nor echinacia nor anything else with has been proven effective in killing or shortening the duration of a cold.

And that's it for Big Frank's health tips for today - now go wash your hands!