Winin’ doubt, know

Art has nothing to do with intellectual pursuit—it shouldn’t be in a university at all. Art should be practiced in gutters—pardon me, in attics.

Phillip Johnson Architect & Mischief Maker

Balloon Art

Walking along Alameda Creek I often meet interesting people. Bob noticing the “discarded ” balloons congregating in the San Francisco Bay along Alameda Creek , made a commitment to cleanup and assembled the balloons into a visual.

Balloons wandering free in the San Francisco Bay.

“There is trash and junk that are far too close to the fish and birds in the area.”

Personal stories told

The visual exhibit.

Alameda Creek

In the morning I usually do some floor exercises in front of the tv and often some version of Law and Order is on. Today the behavioral science professional was on the witness chair, and prosecuting showed evidence that his methodology was not scientific. The defense attorney then stated that “Just because the methodology was not acceptable does not mean the conclusions is wrong.”

lf that were so then why bother doing the experiment, save time and money by just writing out the conclusion and submitting. Forget data gathering and go right to data processing..

Philosophy influenced, perhaps gave birth to, Science and regarding “knowing,” Philosophy had two important concerns : What do we know and How do we know it,

What is the data and how did we get it? What are the conclusions and how did we get there? Actually its What did we do and what are the conclusions.based on the data. —the experiment comes before the conclusions.

In Science there those scientists who specialize in collecting data—methodology— and those who specialize in reviewing and drawing conclusions. from the data.

In Science there is a “standard,” the “Scientific Method,” which defines how to do the experiment, and how to draw and write observations and conclusions.

The “Scientific Method” was developed over centuries by discussions in Philosophy of knowing —What you know and how you know it are equal parts of the knowing process.

The standard is “set”, but not “set in stone.”

Its set ( and taught) so everyone scientist knows what is. and can check on it every once in a while, and, its not set in stone because Science is a process which may never complete, a goal of differentiating and defining every “thing” in the Universe. it seems it will always be learning and growing.

Science is not claiming an “ in and of itself truth” about the Universe and the things in it, but a “to the best of our knowledge,” where knowledge is measured by Did the scientist adhere to the Scientific Method.

If they did not, which may well occur, and mostly does occur, unintentionally and further investigation oftens lead to modification—advancements— in defining and measuring ”—of the Method itself.

The body of scientists is held together by the personal commitment of choice by individual scientists to the Scientific Method. Its an unwritten agreement among self declared individual scientists

There are professional organizations, big and small, and perhaps the main commonality is higher education levels and the more specialized jobs associated. But still scientists around this world are united by their personal commitment to the scientific method.

There are “amateur scientists,” sometimes you hear of discoveries in space, and individuals who collect data adhering to the Method (migration for example) but today science businesses are common as well as well funded university projects.

Still all of these people .who identify themselves as scientists agree to follow the Scientific Method, one part of which is to publish their experimental data for peer review. And they do it peacefully with a balance of rights and responsibilities.

Still, whether we can know the Universe, and all the “things that make it up” is a whole other question. Can we know the Universe only through our biological senses— Empirical data alone —or by our biological capabilities of the mind—Reason interpreting our sensual data.

EndPapers

But happiness is being able to hope, however faintly, for happiness. So, at least, we must believe if we are to live in the world of today.

Osamu Dazai Japanese author 1909 – 1948

A couple from Mumbai visiting their son who live near by, while enjoying the splendors of Alameda Creek

If you’re ever down in Houston, 
Boy you better walk right
And you better not squabble, 
And you better not fight
Bason and Brock will arrest you, 
Payton and Boone will take you down
You can bet your bottom dollar, 
That you’re Sugar Land bound
Let the Midnight Special, 
Shine a light on me
Let the Midnight Special, Shine the ever-lovin’ light on me.

Midnight Special lyrics by Ledbelly (Huddie Ledbetter)

Summer, 1971, Phillips church summer school

The story is that Ledbelly wrote this song while in prison. He got into a fight in a bar, killed someone and was sent to prison. Perhaps he wrote it, perhaps he heard it sung and improved on it

.Ledbelly claimed to have written lots of songs, who knows but he had a singular memory capability and tens if not hundreds of “folk songs” would have been lost if there had been no Leadbelly. The story tells that the warden was so impressed with his singing that he helped him get out of jail.
Ledbelly played the 12-string and Fannon Street tells of his younger days.

Summer, 1971, Phillips church summer school

1969 I made photographs of the Toledo Model Cities program. Ed Douthet (sorry if wrong spelling) in white shirt was training these young men in the Art of brick laying. I was still yet to leave Sociology. much less have a moving business, live in Maine, go to art school, work at a big printer and then move to SiliconValley to start a design business. Ed talked about brick laying as a public Art where design, skill and commitment pf the craftsman made people’s everyday lives better. Some of his words about the public responsibility of artisans doing “the trades” have been with me all my life, he was teaching his students that what they were learning was attached to a vision of how everyday experiences are better because of the visual quality of the work.

Leaving Strong, Maine, at the edge of the town, while driving I looked out the window, picked up the camera and shot, . circa 1971, fifty-one years ago, that makes them over 55 years old. Photographs are frozen moments connecting the past and the future.

In Filene’s, Washington Street, Boston, around 1971

Its cold in Maine

Avalokiteshavara —he who hears the sounds of people all over the world, and now that is the sound of one man, for his personal pleasure killing thousands of people as the world watches in horror as it happens, on prime time television..

Gate gate paragate parasamgate Bodhi Svaha

Know bridge over ripples

Nihonbashi 日本橋

Nihon means Japan, Bashi means bridge.. Edo (now Tokyo) was, and Tokyo is, a city of rivers with roads connecting bridges over those rivers. Each bridge has a story to tell, a story often told on a plaque posted somewhere. Nihon means Japan and bashi means bridge—Japan bridge.

What does that mean?? Chinese characters do not use many parts of grammar used in phonetic languages, parts which are often used for more detailed information. That information is communicated in other ways.

If you have a Chinese or Japanese friend . . . and if you like poetry, . . . and if you have a book of Chinese or Japanese poetry with translation, ask your friend to sit with you and translate the poem—haiku works well because it is short—without looking at the book translation and then compare the two. My personal for Chinese poet would be Su Tung Po (1037–1101).

The differences and sames which will teach you about the poem, about the language and, most interesting, you will learn some insights into english words.

Do other people share a similar view of who I am? Am I different to different people? The former might be boring, the latter two faced.

Be diplomatic to initiate such an event, your friend might think you are “testing them” and be reluctant, but if can find a friend to do it, its a valuable experience. It has nothing to do with their English ability, its not about their proficiency with English, but the words that they select from their English vocabulary to fill in the details will give you insight into the English language.

Think of our paths, each uniquely winding around Earth, and how at the different places of intersections we look back at them and think —That’s not the real me!

Alameda Creek

Who am I to myself and compared to how others see me.

Its not really possible, there is no right or wrong answer. We cannot read the minds of others, and knowing our own mind is a difficult job in its own right.

I imagine that people who are successful in popular medium, especially as“personalities” have a disciplined approach to how they present themselves to others. Doing behavior “A” gets response “B” from others.

If a behavior “A” which always gets a behavior “B” from most others, and it fits a behavior used by popular media, some can become very popular.

On the other hand when you look at all the different people out there, popularity in popular media is not just about communicating with others, but with a lot of others, you need to find lowest common denominators, KISS—Keep it simple stupid.

Others are more concerned with their personal expression. The point is not to do any “some thing” to get popular but to do some “thing” which meets a standard —a professional standard, a skilled craft standard, the Scientific Method— basically a respected independent standard.

Can we do something which makes the world a better place and others do not appreciate it?

Or we do something which makes the world a worse place and become very popular . . .

The photograph is the unchanging gateway between the constantly changing past and future—the “reality” of the image is in the past but the hard copy image is in the present.

EndPapers

I can play this guitar, I can sing a few notes,
I’m old enough now in this country to vote
So I wrote me a song ’bout the white winged dove
And a toy gun for Christmas in place of love.
White Winged Dove Mark Spoelstra

In a public park, Maine about 1973, the grandson gets out the car and starts shooting his toy gun at people in the park.

Cynics would have us believe that altruism is rare. It seems possible, however, that the best of intentions are not nearly so rare as the wisdom that is necessary to implement them.

H.G. Creel Chinese Thought From Confucius to Mao-Tse-tung pub.1954

I picked my way over corpse after corpse in the gloom, until I heard one voice raised above the gentle undulating moaning. I found girl, she was a living skeleton, impossible to gauge her age for she had practically no hair left, and he face on a yellow parchment sheet with two holes in it for eyes . . . And beyond her down the passage and in the hut there were the convulsive movements of dying people too weak to raise themselves from the floor.

Richard Dimbleby, BBC reporter describing entering Belson concentration camp April 1945 THE EYE OF WAR Words and photographs from the Front Line

Feel, feel for your heart
Is it still beating
Or has it died
Dead in its shell
And is your blood wine . . .
Mark Spoelstra from the song Born to Die

Poster, Cambridge, MA , 1971

Drink, drink you war mongers,
Cut with your cold blade of fear.
But your power is dyin’
So let it be told.
Your blood and your bones
Will age with decay
and rot in your soul.
Mark Spoelstra from the song Born to Die

Alone in the temple, trying to hide from the Heart Sutra:

Gate gate paragate, parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha

Stoped in mined

Design of Six

A hanging poster greeting arrivals at Haneda —roku means six. a nice piece of Japanese design incorporating the kanji with the shelf, Ikebana, and product—Japan design greets visitors to its endless discovery.

Two shado images using colorized photographs of my shadow put together as a thing.

The below pattern was made using the above shado image of two colorized photographs of my shadow. Orange (red and yellow) and green (blue and yellow) both share yellow which is the complement of red and blue mixed , i.e. violet or purple—they feel comfortable together. [it does feel disturbingly hard.]

The shadow of my head; left.on an Acoma bowl, and right, on a balloon. In both the mouth is open and appears to be yelling at the corner.

A couple of patterns in Navajo Blanket motif using images of a shado self portrait holding the camera. The lines of the right image feel out of square —could be a design class project.

;Shadow is the absence of light?, why is not light the absence of shadow, Light is one way humans visually experience the universe. The general feeling of the shapes of the leaves—At the top of the leaves there is a feeling of action by smaller pointy things suddenly slowing down as the shapes of the leaves get bigger approaching the viewer. This was fall afternoon in Belmont, Mass, about 1972

Alameda Creek

Photography is about light, light is a human tool for “knowing.” Each of us —most of us, but not everyone—have the ability to visually sense differences in reflected light and (automatically) send it to the brain,“ This is a process of individual knowing.

Does the photograph see like .the eye—as opposed to seeing like a person? Do we think of the eye just being a mechanism whose job is to just send the image to the brain which will “tell us” what it is “seeing”—but Ig et confused, just who is the us in this chain?

Both the eye and the camera, with lens, actually it is the lens that does the seeing, the camera is a container to mount the lens in a position which light, without being disturbed, can pass without being disturbed to something which can record the “light information” which captures a visual image, which can be printed out to a medium

Generally photography is about capturing an image which is visually common in the society, i.e. keep the viewer interested by making mages of things we commonly know, such as things (words) in a language— One of the worst things you can say about a photograph is “What is it?”

Commonly people see a photograph as a “Best Practices” image—it looks like it! Its a standard and for most everyday things is the best standard. No one would make a “legal positive ID” of someone from my images.

The camera has buttons to push and dials to turn to get the right adjustments on the camera to accommodate the control of light to capture an image .

lIf the setting are not “correct” the camera sees, but not like the human eye sees. The camera can see and record things the human eye cannot. Maybe the camera does not really see them, but it creates them, its the first time they exist.

The photograph is that “little piece” of the universe connecting the past and the future? While the material “little piece” is constantly changing, the “human meaning” of the photograph is not, and its a record of “a piece which connects the past and the future.” . . .

well maybe not exactly the same, some added or subtracted embellishments of whatever sorts.

While the photograph is now in our present, the image we “see” is past.in our mind or memory here.

Photographs are things we used to put in albums, now we send them around by internet—flying electricity so to speak—around the Earth instantly..

EndPapers

Sitting in the physical therapy waiting room across there is a reception office , as I look through the transparent ribbed partition I see things in the office, its three receptionists long , office space, end of building window through which to see the next building.

Nakamise-dōri is a shopping street along the way to the temple, Its famous for senbei. and other treats for visitors to eat there or take home as presents.

Avalokiteshvara aka kannon aka Guanyin

Japanese have a different relationship with their temples and shrines than Americans do with their churches. Temples and shrines are embedded with the physical daily life of people living inTokyo..An old large temple like Sensoji is daily packed with visitors, rain or shine, while local people walking to and fro — take a short cut through the temple or shrine grounds. A small alley between large buildings holds a tiny one person temple or shrine People interact with them on their own terms, different from an American church.

A statute of Kannon (Avalokiteshvara) was found in the Sumida River  by two brothers  in 628,,while they made efforts to get rid of it, it always returned, and .Sensoji was built nearby for the goddess of Kannon.

It is one of the most popular “religious” sites to visit in the world.

How to get here from there? there-here= t. or There -here=T

Life of know life

One n’ either

At 76 years of age some days I might wonder what the world wold be if me and my camera had chosen to be the guardian of the Gate of the Past, that gate which always shines with glory . . .

Would .I have rejected the Bodhisattva He Who Observes the Sounds of the World

What sounds would I have missed hearing ?

Maybe the sound of people being friends. or just the sound of my own name.

Alameda Creek

Walking along Alameda Creek gives me a chance to be someone else than myself . . .

That self full of 76 years of life, even so I can still pretend I was not me. . . .

If only I had done that or had not done this. . .

Could I have been a different?

Would I have been a different person or the same person? Is my essence greater than my experience or would my experience have changed my essence?

Or does no matter what your life was . . .

The same person would have come through it all being me..

Everyday, or most every day, I walk along theAlameda Creek levee

Somehow the same places look different . . .

and the different places look the same.

Only to find that its me that has changed, and is changing, into my self.

EndPapers

A moment in a small midwest town . . .

and a moment in a big city.

A family I remember from, over 50 years ago. They were my friends then, I hope their life was good., His father had been a preacher rural Missouri, he played a little piano and sometimes we would sing some of those old gospel songs.

My own mother,, at the time of this photo I was not sure if she knew who I was, maybe at the moment of the photo she did so today I can have the memory she did know who I was

That is one nice quality about words, you can make them mean whatever you want whenever you want—“
I mean, know words are still the same.

Some daze its easier, well maybe more fun anyway, to think of it all —my life— as just a bunch of designs dancing randomly through my memories. As I get older it seems easier to sort & shuffle these memories around, recall them in a different order, imagine I actually did them n that new order, where I knew things and then unlearned them rather than learning from making mistakes but maybe I would have just lost the things I wanted instead of only getting some of those things I wanted and not getting others,

What my camera feels like sandwiched between reality and my illusions.

Gate Gate paragate, parasamgate Bodhi Svaha