New York Movie

New York Movie
---- Big Frank Dickinson

The screen is black and white; all the color's with her.
She has depth, and primary colors of red and blue.
The lights accent her golden head of hair,
Resigned before the red exit curtains.

She's into something else - not this movie;
The big screen plays on with its captivating
Scenes that easily hold the rest of the
Audience in their identical plush red chairs.

The usherette, dressed in blue, stands apart;
She's seen this movie too many times - it means
Nothing to her, but to you the viewer
Of this painting she is the movie, as it were.

We do not know what's on the big screen,
Nor how many people are watching,
Nor why it is that she is standing so
Pensively near the exit lost in thought.

Is she the same woman who later
Works not in a theater, but in a New York Office?
Why do her arms, once again, frame her
Breasts but now with hand under chin?

Is she dreaming of becoming an executive?
Is she upset because her lover is gone?
Is she tired of ushering in blue?
Is she unaware that she's the star?

New York Office

New York Office

---- Big Frank Dickinson

She stands behind the desk in the sunlight
Surrounded and framed in deep darkness
That disappears unlit behind her
Beneath the three dim circles of this cell.

Her bare arms and shoulders frame her breasts,
Near the letter she holds in her hands.
She stares at it in such a businesslike way
As to force the question: why did he write to me here?

The street windows gape slack jawed at her beauty.
The building itself, in which she labors,
Proudly displays her to the world at large:
Look at the face of loveliness that

Emerges from this awful office
Poised motionless and bright, the antithesis
Of the furtive dark figures scurrying
Into the corners of the enterprise.

The sensuous softness of her curves welcome
The visible letter that came in the mail
Finding her stifling shed of employment
This sealed letter does her work annoy.

Night Windows

Night Windows
---- Big Frank Dickinson

As the elevated train passes it draws out
The curtains from within this closeby room
And draws in the glancing gaze of a
Passenger who takes as little notice

Of this scene as the woman takes of the
Roar that now accompanies her bending
Over which is timed to the exact moment
When this passenger's eyes pry in -

And see, not the red on the right,
Not the sad black frame of a building,
Nor the flash of curtain white,
But her bowing away at the end of this day.

Western Motel

Western Motel
---- Big Frank Dickinson

Western space almost rivals this
Central woman whose maroon
Dress brings to mind the riders of
The purple sage that cannot be seen
On the dark mountains behind her.
The room for now encloses those
Distances and in here it is the bed
That stretches out offering the
Bold upright blonde whose gaze
Is as long and direct as the hood
Of the car that is parked outside
Waiting to take her to the next
Temporary lodging where she
Just may unpack those bags.

The Unified Will Resolved Through Love

Big Frank is returning to a issue raised in a previous post - the issue of the unified will. HL has been thinking about this a lot and she raised these issues both in conversation with Big Frank yesterday and previously in comments. So Big Frank is responding - through Harry Frankfurt. The basic issue is that, as St. Augustine wrote, we have both the will to do something and the will not to do it. This ambivalence he characterizes as a "disease of the mind". Harry Frankfurt writes in "Reasons for Love" that the way out of this is through a unified will. HL questions in her comments whether it wouldn't be better to "abolish" one will. That's a good question HL!

It perhaps does not make any difference what you call the end result - abolishing one will, preferring one will, choosing one will, or ignoring one will for the other. It is unlikely that the emotion or passion that sparked the inclination to act will be completely abolished or gotten rid of quickly or easily. Although we all know that there are some things that we have wanted in the past that we no longer desire. However, there are also new things that pop up that present new splits in the will. Perhaps a better question is rather what is the process by which the will becomes less conflicted?

Frankfurt writes that having an undivided will is being wholehearted. And, this is, “ to love oneself” (95). Frankfurt tells us why this is so important: a divided will is a kind self-contradiction in thought. And obtaining the tranquility of an undivided will gives you freedom, freedom from obstruction from yourself. As he writes: “Self-love has going for it, then, its role in constituting both the structure of volitional rationality and the mode of freedom that this structure of the will ensures” (97). Although it is difficult to obtain, having it can be a source of great satisfaction because it gives meaning to our lives by giving us settled final ends.

You'll notice that Frankfurt is following a kind of classical model - like the Stoics, he values tranquility above such romantic values as passion and striving for difficult to obtain things. He emphasizes that care and love can be remedies for the conflicted states of mind. Nonetheless, we have all witnessed how temporary times in our lives that were characterized by restlessness, uncertainty, indecisiveness, and instability have led to positive outcomes. It seems that whether we talk of St. Augustine, St. Paul, Buddha, or many many others we can find that they went through times of restless striving that led them to a form of transcendence. Thus, like so many other truisms there is more than a little simplicity in Frankfurt's notion of wholeheartedness. Still it seems a worthy goal and one would hope that his notion of wholeheartedness would carry the day most of the time, with only infrequent episodes of transitional unease.

So it appears that it is advantageous to live a life of tranquility facilitated through self-love. However, at times this can be thrown out of balance, and while by and large through wholeheartedness one weathers these emotion/passions/urges to do something or not to do something, still there are times when one can be transformed in a good way through restless striving. The status quo is not in and of itself always desirable. Through self-love one can stay on track, but it is also true that a interrupted stability often accompanies positive transformations! Ignoring it could result in missed opportunities.

Nighthawks

Nighthawks

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Safe from the maw of gaping black windows,
Up from the drop of the streets,

Unstained by the marks of darkness,

Removed from solitary singularity,
Fenced in from free ranging,

Ditching the drop of depression,

Protecting themselves they sit together

Repudiating the barren backdrop -

They are restored by the reach of the diner

Whose white-capped captain sticks its prow

Into the heartlessness of this city's night

To scoop up its survivors
And serve them coffee

As in the whir of countered silence
They mull over where they were.

Summer Evening

Summer Evening
---- Big Frank Dickinson

The lovers stand under the porch light;
He's leaning towards her against the ledge
While she stands immobile with arms
Thurst back scantily dressed in pink.

At first, in looking at the couple,
We see a kind of courtship ritual
That prompts our memories to
Put a sentimental script to this scene.

She seems stiffly determined in some way,
Either poised to pronounce some finality,
Or uncertainly resistant to something he's
Saying, as he explains or implores.

But the green slanting through the window,
Across the door, then down his pants to
A sliver of lawn; says more than their imagined
Conversation: follow the green

To the dark frame that shows us this is
More than what they say, it is where
They are now in the world that surrounds
The conversation that blinds them to

This beautiful scene of geometrical contrast:
The white-black pattern of
The clapboards that stand as columns
Bordered by blue floorboards and ceiling;

The porch columns disappearing
Into the total blackness surrounding this
Porch-lit couple who are echoed
By the door and window paired to their left.

We are highlighted by props
That accompany us even when
We think we're off stage. Even then
They cast their beauty out around us.

Automat

Automat
---- Big Frank Dickinson

What you cannot see in this painting
Are the machines that gave this woman
Her coffee; she did not have to speak
To anyone at all; nor must she speak

While drinking; but she cannot stop thinking.
The words are delivered to her in automatic
Efficiency - only the words that she wants
And only her words for she's in charge.

She takes those words with coffee
At this public table with herself;
It is a treat for her, and something
That she looks forward to each day.

The lights reflected in the dark
Window are in pairs that mirror
The internal conversation that
Accompanies her tiny sips.

Chair Car

Chair Car
---- Big Frank Dickinson

These people look like they're part of
The car, all green - green carpet,
green walls, and very green chairs.
All silently alive with darkness,

Black, the secondary color; and
White accents interposed by the cloth
At the back of the chair, which
Shrieks heads and thoughts unknown.

These are people on a train in
A chair car, full of just that
Plus people whom the chairs
Swallow up, it is a chair car.

It is not a people car.
The woman in the foreground
Dressed so absolutely green that
She melts into her chair

Is reading with a scowl matched
By the squinting eyes of the woman
In red who's glancing backwards,
At nobody but her own thoughts.

The two in the front are only
Heads sprouting muted questions
That fill this car as fully as the
Green which assails you as it

Absorbs them into the hushed
Isolated, normal, quiet hum
Of interior monologue as vegetative
As the sense of beechwood sap.

The Chance Encounter

Compartment C, Car 193
---- Big Frank Dickinson

She sits in compartment C, car 193
On a train from Seattle to Portland.
She sits alone, for now that is.
For perhaps someone is coming.

There is a thin smile leaking
From the corners of her mouth.
Her only outward sign
Of why she's here.

Inwardly she knows for sure
Or so she seems aware
Of some welcomed arrival
Due before the station.

She sits upon uphostery green
With legs crossed primly and
Hat drawn down upon her face
To fit the role she's playing.

Her smile is open just a crack
To match the whistling window
To her right. While to her
Left someone's approaching

But not for tea,
And not to talk of
Frippery.
No he's come for her.

This encounter is
As in rhythm with her
As his footsteps'
Are with the train's.

Clickty clack on down
The track. He stops
at her smile.
She's frozen.

"Excuse me, Ma'am;
Is this seat taken?"
And then his
Recognition.

She then raises
Her eyes to
His and as
He sits beside her

She takes off
Her hat and
Says to him,
"What took you?"

Sunlight in a Cafeteria

Sunlight in a Cafeteria
---- Big Frank Dickinson

This cafeteria has two customers.
She sits in slant of sunlight yellow;
He frozen framed in shadow while
Through the window it's uniformly gray.

He's facing her across the room.
She has food but isn't eating.
He has neither food nor drink, nor words.
He reaches out an empty hand.

She looks away at the floor,
Legs locked at the ankle.
His puzzled disappointment
Takes him further within.

The tables are ominously dominating
like sleeping armies in formation;
The silent unfed holding positions
More out of habit than duty.

What's happening is unsaid in this uneasy
Cafeteria with little light and no sound.
The silence is as startling
As the undropped tray of dishes.

Cycling on the Columbia Plateau!

Big Frank hit a new cycling trail today. The Columbia Plateau Trail is a 130-mile trail that runs from Cheney, Washington to Pasco. It has been created along the abandoned right-of-way of the former Spoakne, Portland and Seattle Railway. Much of it is unpaved, which makes it OK if you are hiking, riding a horse, or riding a mountian bike. Bike Frank is a skinny wheels kind of guy, and so he was saddened to find that there is only 3.75 miles of paved trail. That section is beautiful with a really well-kept trail that Big Frank covered up and back. However, in order to get in a real ride he had to head out on the roads in the surrounding area. Luckily they are well-paved and have very light traffic.
The entire area is full of basalt cliffs and pockets of lakes. There is a lot of wildlife - Big Frank saw a number of bald eagles, and quite a few marmots, geese, and ducks. Much of the trail is within the Turnbull Wildlife Refuge where there are a lot of birds. It was a great ride and Big Frank will be back; however, he will have to return with a map because he didn't really know the roads very well and ended up going places, but didn't really know where he was - which isn't always that bad (kind of like life!).

"Everything you can imagine is real."

Mina Loy (what a great name) painted the picture to the left entitled "Woman Weaving". The painting can be found in an interesting book entitled The Writer’s Brush: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers by David Friedman. Big Frank, however, would retitle the painting "Woman Instigating".



Here's an excerpt from her poem entitled "Effectual Marriage":

"So here we might dispense with her . . . being a female
But she was more than that
Being an incipience a correlative
an instigation to the reaction of man
From the Palpable to the transcendent
Mollescent irritant of his fantasy . . .
She flowered in Empyrean
From which no well-mated woman ever returns."

Big Frank is back in Spokane. Up above - nothing but blue skies. The photo below is the best that Big Frank can do today. Not a cloud in the sky! Here's an apt quotation to go with this photo: "Everything you can imagine is real." -- Pablo Picasso.

Global Human RIghts & Wetlands Restoration

Big Frank spent the last two days attending meetings and a workshop for the Northwest International Education Association, which had its annual workshop, which was on "Human Rights in a Time of Global Crisis". the keynote was on how media is used to monitor and inform on human rights. Such websites as Second Life, for example, enable through virtual reality a kind of simulation of an alternate reality - such as life in the detention center in Guantanamo. Virtual activities have sociological promise and problems. Dr. Ron Brabill from the University of Washington Bothell also talked about The Hub, an interactive community for human rights where anyone can upload video, audio, or photos in an attempt to education people from around the world about human rights violations. Take a look at their interactive map. There were lots of other great presentations on topics such as "Human Rights and Development", "Women's Rights in Iran", and "Use of Technology in Global Education".

A suprising part Cascadia College/University of Washington Bothell is the location of the campus. It is situated adjacent to a 58 acre wetlands restoration project. The project is only 9 years old and already it is well on its way to achieving its goals.


Lastly, a photo of the clouds that hung over the eastern skies of Bothell. To Big Frank this scene has a kind of Thomas Hart Benton feel to it - similar to his landscapres with their twirls and geometrical balance all implying restrained energy ready to explode at any minute.

Here's Benton's painting - "The Bicyclers": the landscape is poised. Despite the seemingly tranquil scene there is latent energy there. However, that couple should get on those bikes and ride.


All photos by BFD.

Clouds In Between

Big Frank is now in Seattle. He drove from Spokane to Wenatchee and then over Stevens Pass to Seattle - all the way on Highway #2, which some say is the most beautiful highway in the U.S. It certainly does seem to be the most beautiful. One wonders why people are so in love with interstate systems - you miss so much.

Two highlights along the way were Dry Falls, just south of Coulee Dam, and, of course, Wenatchee. Nestled in the Columbia River valley with towering hills on both sides of the river, it is a beautifully situated city. It is conveniently located about half-way between Spokane and Seattle - a perfect place to spend the night on the way. This morning before heading out to Seattle there were beautiful white streaks of clouds, looking almost like whipped cream on top of the Wenatchee hills. Big Frank was able to snap a few shots - see the one above - before reluctantly leaving the Apple City. Big Frank will be travelling through again on his way back to Spokane. Highway 2 all the way. Work tomorrow but on the road by midafternoon.


All photos by BFD.

Seattle bound

Big Frank captured this beautiful and haunting scene yesterday late afternoon. Coming out from work he looked up and there in the western sky (what does that mean?) was a a window of blue sky peeking through the dark clouds. With the dark framing of trees the view becomes even more ominous. However, it's all in your perpective - just look at the blue, and repeat: "Blue skies smiling at me; nothing but blue skies do I see."

.
Today, Big Frank is heading cross state for a Northwest International Educational Association meeting and workshop. This centers around the global impact of the current fiscal crisis. However, on the way an obligatory stop in River City! You never know what is going to happen in that fair town.

Cloudy!

Big Frank realized that clouds need some space between them in order to be appreciated, in order to capture their uniqueness. When they all come together in a show of cloudy unity it is dark. That is what "cloudy" means: it means nothing but clouds, and that makes it pretty much just one cloud.

Today was cloudy. However, not completely. As the attached photo indicates, there was a glimmer of sky (look in the lefthand corner), and in time (although there is no accompanying photo to prove this - you'll just have to take Big Frank's word for it), parts of the sky did clear, and some of the sun came out. What does this all mean? Following the pathetic fallacy (Big Frank is still riding that horse) it means that there is a temporary clouding over of prospects, as it were, but that in time that will clear, and the blue sky with its white lace will return and be even more appreciated than before, due to its brief absence.

And so the cloudy day sits above you like an unanswered question. Live it in the manner of Rilke's advice to a young poet to:

... have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

Incorrigibility

Incorrigibility
---- Big Frank Dickinson

Beyond fixing, that's what they say - worn out.
Oh, it seemed alright for quite some time,
what with the hum and buzz and all that;
thought it was going to last forever.
It went not away but into transformation.
We all have that in built incorrigibility.
Dead set on heading pellmell down the road,
you look in the rear-view mirror and, hell, it's like
going backwards forwards, what slips away
tells you that you were there. Hey, it's gone!
Wait a minute - let me dwell on that for a minute.
The time expands in a kind of stop frame analysis
that takes place with multiple gaps. Recollection in,
well not tranquility, rather in a heightened state
of loss, grief? No regret. Fascinating replay
from a different angle. Strange how the view
can be circular, can be various - cameras in
every corner both inside and out and replayed
in streaming time. Certain scenes eat up what
came in between. Certain scenes are gone,
Uncertain scenes also get their share of
attention, what is not replayed are the contents of your closet.
How many times have you seen that, or the carpet in
your hallway, the front door, and the back end of your garage?
But bring in the emotions in full dress and then
you have an attraction - memory in cahoots not with
your front lawn, not with the hallway light, and certainly not
with your cornflakes, but with your dopamine surge,
your heartache, your fear, and your laughter.
That's what's incorrigible - and it's a good thing too
because you'd have nothing to review if they weren't
there carving those moments into your heart.

Cycling leads to an EMERGING THOUGHT!

Big Frank was out on the bike today. It was a spectacularly beautiful day. He did the ride to Idaho and back on the Centennial Trail and it was smooth going all the way. Big Frank feels like he's gotten his groove back again.

And above him - you know it - the clouds were doing their thing. Another day with low hanging cumulus clouds slowly meandering across the sky from west to east. Today Big Frank was struck by how these clouds resembled thoughts. Some of them were large and looming, others were slowing forming with dark interiors (who knows maybe those were actually silver linings!), and still others were appearing as from nowhere. These are similar to thoughts that come upon you leaving you wondering how and why. Big Frank took a photo of one such overpowering idea (cloud) that slowly by inevitably rises from beyond the horizon. It looks like a good one - where has it been hiding? And why today? No matter - Big Frank welcomes it realizing that he has actually been waiting for this one! Finally, here it is!

Clouds and the Pathetic Fallacy

OK - Big Frank is still looking up into the sky and is continually amazed at what's going on up there. Not just the large stuff floating around with the whole parade of clouds, but the swirling, fluid changes that are continually happening within each cloud that you can see if you look closely. Beyond that you can also find clouds or whole cloud-scapes that reflect what is going on inside of you. This is a pathetic fallacy (note: here pathetic is not a pejorative term but rather is related to empathy; in this case the clouds are empathizing with you - they are reflecting in their appearance what is going on emotionally with you). This literary term, coined by John Ruskin, was especially prevalent in 19th century romantic poets like Wordswoth, Shelly, and Cowper. However you can also find it used in contemporary poets too like John Ashberry and Mary Oliver. Anything along the lines of: "the sky wept" or "the angry wind blew" or the "exuberant south wind" is a fallacy because of course the sky can not cry, nor can the wind be angry etc.

Now, having said that, take a look up in the sky - do it tomorrow. I defy you to not find a cloud, if there is one, that doesn't carry a bit, or perhaps a lot, of you inside it. The sky will speak to you reflecting back at you what's going on inside you. It's like a giant mirror above you all the time. So with that - here's a photo I took today: it sure does look like emerging joy to Big Frank! And, as we all know, the sky knows best! This sure bodes well for Big Frank!

Chmury

It seems to Big Frank that the Polish word for clouds "chmury" (pronounced hmoori) goes much better with clouds than our English klowdz, which is heavy - far to heavy a sound for these light floating decorations that surround us daily. Big Frank takes his camera with him now wherever he goes, and he has tried to capture some of the majesty, the panoramic puffs, the evolving backdrop to our daily lives, but when he downloads the photos they seem so small and piecemeal. Big Frank is going to have to start taking panoramic shots. Although even that will be a poor approximation of the dynamic ever-changing show above us. Today, there were towering cumulus clouds with some darkly threatening, others clean and white in the sunlight. In the distance curtains of white rain streaked the horizon in stark contrast to the dark clouds behind it. Some of the clouds assume real shapes. Big Frank saw one that was a true represenation of Iceland. Another assumed the profile of a witch, and still another was a clown's smile - alone in the sky, like the smile of the Chesire Cat. Big Frank can't wait for tomorrow's show.

The Anti-Genie

To The Anti-Genie

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Take this wish for what I want;
The flaunting swish of absence,
The empty hand that weighs me down.
Take it back, Ant-Genie, and put it in that
Magic Lamp of yours; then give it substance
In the settled fate of someone else,
Who will be sated through your gift of my lack,
Recycled into that which lives not in vain hopes

But in the contained memory of sweet desire met.
Now as incomplete as a nagging chorus without a song.
Give me silence without the murmuring crowd,
A tranquil plain with a visible horizon,
Whose edge I can approach, filling my eyes,
Feeling its curve and lying down upon it
Have that line, distant as it now appears,

Be mine.

Yes Yes

Yes
---- Big Frank Dickinson

Of all the words that come to you
There's none that can compare with "Yes".
It affirms, it agrees, and it opens doors,
Doors that you have awaited the opening of

Thinking to yourself: yes . . . no?, yes? . . . no?
Banish no and welcome yes for it says: OK,
What you have waited for is here for you.
Yes to you, and yes to now, and yes to tomorrow.

Yes, count the syllables - one.
Yes, now say it long - two syllables.
Yes, count the letters - three
Now say it four time: yes, yes, yes, yes.

Look at this word - it's silly in its
Jaw dropping glide through the
Mundane shwa to the promising
Sibilant - sssssss - as long as you waited.

Yes, it's OK. Yes it's obvious.
Yes, it's yes. Yes it really is yes.
Yes, it's not no - it's yes.
Yes it's yes - Yes.

Thinking as an argument?

The brain as argument? Seems like an unlikely analogy, yet that is precisely what Lehrer compares it to in How We Decide. The interesting aspect of this that to the extent that a person supresses this argument - this diverse sounding out of all sides - to that extent the person runs the risk of coming to a wrong decision. Unfortunately certainty is no guide when it comes to making a good decision. In fact, in studies of TV pundits there is actually a positive correlation between the certainty of position taken with the wrongness of that position. The danger, is that surety is often the rational side of the brain silencing other inputs from the emotional or intuitive side of the house, as it were. And in many decisions, especially big ones in your life, this is exactly the side that one should be listening to.

Walt Whitman had it right when he said: "I am vast; I contain multitudes." Similarly Emerson's statement: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." When confronted with this cacophony of disparate inputs from the brain we often trick ourselves into surety - a false one to be sure. It is the little attorney that resides in our rationality that spins these briefs and we accept them with great willingness. Take, for example, the experiments with people who have had their callosum calorum cut (the nerve tissue that connects the two hemispheres of the brain - done to reduce severe seizures); when through a special visual instrument different pictures are shown to the different hemispheres (each unaware of the other) and they are asked to point to what they saw, each hand points to a different picture. For example, one hand to a shovel and the other to a chicken foot. When asked to explain why these two, without exception the person will give what is to them a rational explanation: the chicken foot goes with the shovel because you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shit out of a shed. This is stated with absolute certainty. Our rational attorney will always provide us with a ready explanation and one that presents a false picture of a unified brain, even when there is none whatsoever. The need to supress inner contradictions is a fundmental property of the human mind.

Lehrer suggests the following to avoid falling into this trap of certainty. First of all, embrace uncertainty. Pretending that a mystery does not exist invites the dangerous pitfall of certainty. "Bad decisions happen when the mental debate is cut short, when an artificial consensus is imposed on the neural quarrel." This can best be done by (1) allowing yourself to entertain competing hypotheses; (2) continually remind yourself of what it is that you do not know. And finally keep in mind that you know more than you know. "The conscious brain is ignorant of its own underpinnings, blind to all the neural activity taking place outside of the prefrontal conrtex. That is why people have emotions: they are windows into the unconcious, visceral representation we process but don't perceive. The one thing that you should always be doing is considering your emotions, thinking why it is that you are feeling what you are feeling.

Thinking and Choking

Big Frank is reading How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer - a book on understanding human decision-making. He makes use of recent findings in neuroscience in showing how it is that we make decisions. One of the interesting aspects of this is the interplay between emotional and rational choices. Sometimes the emotional comes quickly (the intuitive option) but often our rational side mistrusts that and begins to analyze us into error. As Lehrer puts it: "(One of the problems with feelings is that even when they are accurate they can still be hard to articulate.) Instead of going with the option of what feels best, a persons starts going with the option that sounds the best, even if it's a very bad idea."

In the mid 1980s Consumer Reports rated over 40 strawberry jams and ranked their results from 1 to 40. A California psychologist then tried a similar experiment with his graduate students. He chose four jams that had been rated 1st, 11th, 24th, 32nd, and 44th by the experts and asked his students to rank them. His students ranked the jams in the exact same order as the experts. Then he asked a different group of students to write out criteria to be used in ranking the jams and then to rank them. These students ended up ranking the jams in the exact reverse order - the worst as best and vice-versa.

What's going on here? The psychologist explained it this way: "that 'thinking too much' about strawberry jam causes us to focus on all sorts of variables that don't really matter. Instead of just listening to our instinctive preferences - the best jam is associated with the most positive feelings - our rational brain search for reasons to prefer one jam to another." People talk themselves in to liking the the worst over the best - they trip over their own minds: they choke. They relied too much on their rational brain, proving that there is such a thing as too much analysis, and this cuts one off from the wisdom of the emotions, "which are actually much better at assessing actual preferences."

Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes

Saturday was a gorgeous day - perfect for cycling. Big Frank and his good friend, Mandy, went to Idaho to try out the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. It was wonderful. Mandy was visiting to recruit students for her university in Arizona. Big Frank was showing her the wonders of the Spokane area - and cycling trails is certainly one of them.

They started in Harrison, Idaho, and went east along the trail into the chain of lakes and then back. There was lots of wildlife out: they saw moose, bald eagles, Canadian geese, and swans, in addition to the constant melody of the song birds. It's an almost level grade, and there were not very many others on the trail, so it was a great ride.

This is definitely a trail that Big Frank will be returning to ride again soon. Mandy rented her bike at the Peddle Pushers Bike Shop in Harrison. John and Sharon run that and they are terrific folks. Their shop was actually not open on Saturday when Big Frank called, but even though John had been planning to go into Coeur d'Alene to buy a refrigerator that day, he stayed until late morning in order to accommodate Mandy with a rental. Great folks.