Boo, Duh, and Eye

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Cherries & Nishin Soba

Everyday the challenge is to get something to eat.

Painting by Janney

Nishin soba is a traditional Japanese bowl dish made with soba noodles, hot tsuyu broth, herring filets, shiitake mushrooms, sake, sugar, mirin, soy sauce, and dashi. Kyoto is famous for its nishin soba..

Jindai-ji (Jindai temple) in Chofu is famous for soba noodles, you can eat there or purchase a package of dry soba noodles to make at home— this time I did both..

Boo used to be a slang word for marijuana, it was not common among people I knew in the 1960s, I think is was more associated with earlier jazz musicians.

Duh is the old story of the no-longer-a-job milkman —when I grew up instead of buying milk at a store a milkman used to deliver milk in the early morning. using a horse and wagon , and later a milk truck. The milk came in bottles , when the bottle was empty you washed it out and put it on the porch for pickup the next morning . You could leave the milkman a note with your order in the small milk box on the porch.

The small boy asks his mother “Duh, Mother, why do I say Duh all the time?” She replied. ”I don’t know go ask your father.”

The small boy asked his father “Duh, Father ,why do I say Duh all the time?” He replied. ”I don’t know go ask your sister”.

The small boy asked his sister “Duh, Sis, why do I say Duh all the time?” She replied. ”I don’t know”, go ask the milkman.”.

The small boy asked the milkman, “Duh, Mr Milkman , why do I say Duh all the time?” He replied. “Duh, I don’t know.”

And eye is the camera . A photograph shows change not by showing the changing but by showing what did not change.Though we lived in the house it was always “the house” even though it was changing all the time,

A camera is a machine, which extends our eye, and enables us to transcend time as well as space. A camera can make many kinds of images, most of which may not make “sense” to the human eye which sees like the “correctly exposed” image made using a camera.

The “traditional” film image and the “digital ” image on a drive are both yet to be photographs,. the human eye cannot yet experience the image. Maybe there is an application which enables the computer to “see” a directory of jpg files and sort them out by “things” humans can see

Last week I included some images of a building in San Francisco. I forgot about this one and came across it later. The building lends itself to a lot of visual fun

Alameda Creek

Almost everyday walking along Alameda Creek, its another day to be the only planet with “scientifically known intelligent life” in Universe ..

Same tree but color has changed, same ground but texture has changed . . . same sky but blue or gray— it watching the same things change.

Trees ,ground,, sky, what are these things?

One day small, anther day big; one day green, another day brown; , one day blue, another day grey —its still tree, ground, sky .

We see things by comparing things to each other and finding they are not the same. No two things in the universe are the same . Life must differentiate between things which enable survival from those that do not —I can eat this thing, I cannot eat that thing.

Other things we can only measure ordinally—put them into an order without knowing the difference between them. This one is big,. that one is heavy, that one is faraway, that person is intelligent. But ordinal measurements always require a comparison, another standard. In a group of apples some will be heavier than others but you only know that after you experience them or the person making the statement brings previous experience —the fruit produce person says “This is a big apple.” because they have seen so many apples in their life.

Everyday people throughout history were comparing , differentiating, and defining,—“This is good,” “That is bad., “Can eat this” or “Can’t eat that.”

Some things we can measure with .interval level accuracy—I need 36 inches of that cloth; Two cups of water and one-third cup of flour; a 9″ x 12″ rug . . .

Other things are not so definitive. The problem is not so much measuring something as comparing one thing to another which requires tools based on common measurable qualities, such as inches, kilograms or degrees .Most of our decisions are based on choosing something over other things and we need some standard y to measure them.

Before language, early people did not have words, they had to experience and from experience developed and evolved words and language most of which is about differentiating things and measuring and comparing them to make choices.. What is a“same thing,” what is a “different thing”

And daily people are measuring themselves,,perhaps even causing anxiety and fear. while manly who don o measurement of themselves are busy being arrogant ,and usually bullying others

After the big rain storm last Sunday the creek was flush with water . . .

On earth there are different languages . If there are “Real Things ” then translation would be just a matter of matching the right sound to the thing.

. . . it rose a few feet drowning many small animals such as ground squirrels, and mice and all week long its been an open buffett for the local turkey vultures

But as translators have often discussed, its not so simple, even within a society there are differences between written and spoken words, and in different languages .many nuances among words representing the same thing. make it difficult translate. the differences..When there is only one language on Earth ir will be easier to for people to communicate, but there will be a lot less to communicate.
Or maybe not, when yo consider that congress passes laws written by lawyers which seem very clear only to find when they are enforce ,usually to wealthy people, that the words have little or no meaning.

Photographs for me may not be about the moment in front of the lens but about the relationship between of lines, the shapes, colors, gestures , i.e. the visual artistic variables.

Friends on a visit. The snow geese stopped by for a few days last year or maybe last spring, The local geese are holding their heads up straight and looking so proud as if they are showing off their guests to the less fortunate.

Different languages have more agreement with words which represent things for which we have tools designed by humans which use common mathematical intervals to measure a thing, such as meters or kilograms and less for things which use ordinal or nominal level “tools” to measure such as bigger or smaller,, more or less, You can compare a house to a rock measuring inches but it has very little practical use and you can compare a parent”s love for their child, but its either really obvious when parent does not lover their child or you find that people have many qualitatively different ways of expressing their love. which cannot be measured or compared quantitively.

The eye is busy visually experiencing while the brain is busy defining things . It could be the eye sees things and the brain learns this is a thing as well as the eye sees and the brain defines what was seen as a “thing.” Humans created and evolved language based on very different life experiences than we have now, and learning language both enables communication while giving us word meanings which may be more applicable to the past and may influence how we behave int he present and, of course, the future.

Feet and green-gun-shaped discarded-deteriorated-packaging material along the Alameda Creek Trail. Its another day to be on the only planet in the Universe with “scientifically known intelligent life”— and here we are busy killing each other.while trying to find a balance between compassion for others and pragmatic for ourselves.

EndPapers

Causes and effects—There are special effects, collateral effects, body effects, Its Human Nature to do things, and when its things we do not want to do, maybe do not have the skill to do them, we might pay others to do them for us because its a good investment,

I like to get my shadow to do things for me, its not too expensive, and when it makes a mistake it cannot run and hide.

Sometimes I think to have my own back and feel like I am going sideways , barely treading water.

Or then its not exactly what I want. but when I look find it.

What kind of society do we have when we seek full employment to provide maximum jobs by growing an economy which produce an unending supply of new and different products base1d on constantly changing popular whims and superficial feelings at the expense of basic survival for many and the loss of meaningful personal achievement for most.

Marshall Minnesota, 1970

;Selection from Heart Sutra brushed by Janney