I tried yoga for the first time this past week, under the auspice of a DVD called "Yoga For Athletes." At the outset it must be understood that I am not a yoga sort of person. I am inherently inflexible, which is the inevitable result of a lifetime of horseback riding and hockey, and exaggeratedly slow and intoning voices make me giggle. The whole breathing thing is something that I have dabbled in before; as a relaxation technique it is quite effective, as I've found both for myself and for those people who have received a massage from me at any point in the past. However, being told to look deep into my "inner body" and then to look out at my surroundings as I would look through a window merely results in an overwhelming mental image of Kilroy peering over the top of a truck windscreen, which then in its turn conjures up Robin Williams likening fake breasts to the same. Hardly a contemplative reflection. I would also like to point out that isolated movement of one's side ribs is physically impossible, and the guy who demonstrates the moves on the DVD is inhumanly skeletal.

All of this being said though, you would not believe how much a series of nearly motionless stances can make you hurt the next morning.

outlaw women don't need no guns - outlaw women - we're just out for fun

fuggita io son da toui nemici - un gelo mi serpeggia nel sen - trema ogni fibra

and that's when she found me - not afraid anymore - she said you know, i always had you, baby - just waitin' for you to find what you were lookin' for

Only in the semiconductor industry can you walk into a fab and see a machine station glaringly emblazoned with the label "Backside Inspection."

Last movie theater trip: Batman Begins (finally!)

Very impressive. Stars a refreshingly non-mainstream actor (the last time I remember Bale was as Quinn in the ill-fated Reign of Fire) and makes excellent use of Michael Caine's dry British butler humor, and Liam Neeson's aloof, crooked-nosed visage as tough-guy teacher*. I forgive them the necessary profligate array of neat and unlikely Batman gadgets, and appreciate the knowledge of their origin. One wonders why the anonymous Chinese company never begins to wonder about an order for 10,000 graphite masks with bat ears. The likewise requisite car chase and of course climactic high-speed train segments could be labelled contrived by the critical, but work out in the overall tone of the movie (dark...very dark). Cillian Murphy's baby-blue eyes and long lashes make him all the more chilling as a villain - he looks about fifteen most of the time, and yet is a total psycho. Youth as evil is twice as bad as your usual adult axe-murderer, since the destruction of youth's innocence makes these characters all the more unnatural. Even sans burlap mask and Nasty Chemical Spray, he's just creepy. Good ol' Soprano-style drug-running mob boss and his attendant chief mafioso are flat, textbook characters requiring no embroidery, but we completely expect to find them present in the underworld that Gotham has become. Morgan Freeman is flawless, as usual. And mad props to the make-up guys for Gary Oldman as the future Commissioner Gordon; I didn't even recognize him. Interesting look into the dangers of absolute justice, and also the crippling nature of fear. The ultimate enemy created is fear of fear itself. I was more than tempted to sit and repeat the Litany Against Fear from Dune to myself. Psychology over brute strength, to me, remains the distinctive quality of the Batman world. Although it must be noted that Christian Bale's voice navigates thirty degrees to deep and fifteen to raspy every time he puts on the mask, and some of the rooftop billowing-cape superhero shots were excessive (but they'll make GREAT posters). Excellent strategy on the director's part to stress the part of Bruce Wayne over Batman for the majority of the movie, and to go into great depth as to the motivations that brought the globe-trotting, criminal-insight-seeking Princeton drop-out from Gotham to the icy wastes of Asia and back again. Two thumbs way up, and thanks to the UK for such a predominantly non-American star-studded cast. Full recommendations for an enjoyable evening**.

*I am by conscience bound to compliment anyone who worked as a forklift operator for Guinness at one point in his life.
**Many thanks to M., who drove me to the theater.

Was thinking the other day about the sheer amount of time I spend per year in the state of New York. Was immediately motivated to think about other things, namely, how far away from the state I've been.



Thankfully, pretty far*.
It does look as though I have some travelling to do in the Midwest though.


*Editorial note for K.'s sake: I do appreciate what natural beauty New York possesses. However, I am not currently in a region that boasts it, and I was also referring more generally to the fact that for a state I don't even technically live in, I spend an awfully large percentage of the year there.

I never remember my dreams. I usually dream in color, and with plenty of motion and change, both by the scenario and the characters involved, but I never remember them upon waking. I guess it's odd then, that for the past four nights or so I have been dreaming so vividly, and the dreams themselves so impacting, that I have stopped to think about them immediately after waking and thereby commit them to memory. Specific details fade, as with all things, but the bulk remains. They have all involved people I know well, family and friends, and on one occasion some people that my waking self did not recognize but my dream self accounted as very good friends indeed. The scenarios have likewise all been familiar, but with subtle differences that my waking self would have been confused by. My dream self, however, with that clarity found only in the unconscious, knew immediately where it was.

I have, on occasion, found that these especially vivid and lifelike dreams, though they so rarely come, have a tendency of coming true later on. I guess we'll see.

and who he would become, all the things he'd have done - would he have loved you and not let you down - and would he be stronger than his father - don't punish yourself, leave it well alone

Speaking of said professor, I must thank him and his own weblog for guiding me to this excellent series of posts about creationism, which raises the same sorts of questions I have asked myself many times...

And yes, I think that this is the most links I have ever used in one post before.

On a whim I went to the old website for the HP101 course that spawned this weblog, and surfed through the entire list of my fellow classmates to see how many still had a tangible toehold in the world of cyberspace. Of the original 30-odd of us, including myself, all but seven ceased with the end of the course in 2003, or shortly thereafter. All but five made an attempt at resurrection but also ultimately ceased in 2004. Those last five continue to post, some daily, some intermittently. Some speak with passion of politics or other inflammatory topics, some hold simply to personal events and feelings. They have taken what began as yet another class project to be burdened with and made it their own, personalized it, placed whichever items they carry closest to their hearts at the forefront. Nowhere is there a trace of the literary discussion of hypertext which dominated the early weeks of these weblogs' existence - instead of existing for the purpose of discussing themselves, they have now become sites dedicated to the musings and thoughts and opinions of their makers. Which, I am sure, was the professor's intent all along.

I don't eat my words nearly so often as I swallow my laugh.

Physics’ linear progressions explain
nothing. There are no systematic laws
for the heart, save one: it beats.

from Quantification, found via riley dog

e skeud teñval an tourioù glav - c'hwi am gwelo 'c'hortoz atav

he said i'd rather make love than war - and i'd rather have millions than to ever be poor - but i'd rather be happy than to have any more

I remember standing with my hands resting on the ridiculous bit of yellow nylon rope that separated me from the towering monoliths of Stonehenge and thinking how easy it would be to just take a step, cross that so-weak barrier, and lay my hand flat on a sarsen or a piece of bluestone harried unwillingly from a Preseli mountainside. Around us the Salisbury Plain rolled away to the horizon, offering faint glimpses of other barrow-mounds and the great earthen avenue that leads up to Stonehenge, standing its ground a mere hundred feet from the highway. Subtract the concrete and the smell of hot tar hovering in the spring air, and you could have populated this stretch of green moor with the white dots of grazing sheep and the huts of the Beaker Folk five thousand years ago. In the shimmering dusk, with the sun sinking in a golden pool of fire between two of the center trilithons, it was easier to believe in Merlin than in pulleys.

A few days later I stood atop Arthur's Seat at midnight after hacking my way through some particularly carnivorous brambles and gazed at twinkling Edinburgh spread beneath me like a tapestry. Night-lit, the castle rose on its shoulder of rock from the center, dominating the city and drawing the eye to its ancient lines, and my Cameron blood sang. History suffused the soil onto which I eventually sank, enthralled by nothing more than the glow of the royal city, the smell of heather, and the squeak of bats as they dipped and swooped in the dark.

I remember treading carefully inside the cool dusk of Westminster Abbey, craning my head to admire the soaring cathedral ceiling and just as quickly lowering my eyes to my feet, lest I should unwittingly walk disrespectfully upon someone's grave. It is a difficult proposition, in that building, to move far without doing so, but I did my best. Some stones were worn so smooth that the names of those whose remains they marked could no longer be read. On others, the engraved letters were still clear as day, etched deep in the stone and sparking a remembrance not lightly cast away.

Requiescat in pace

Astrologer Sues NASA Over Comet Mission

Wow.

I broke 4000. Sweeeeeeeeeet...

Yes, I have too much time on my hands.

i've been through the desert on a horse with no name - it felt good to be out of the rain - in the desert, you can remember your name - 'cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

So I think I should clarify something that appears to have been causing some confusion. I write a lot about solitude; its powers of regeneration and refreshment, and the value of being alone. I am one of the foremost proponents of quiet, introspective time spent away from the noise and grime of everyday crowded life. Being alone, however, is a very different thing than being lonely. Going for a walk in the woods or curling up next to a fireplace with a good book are not the same as locking oneself in one's room and sulking or drinking the night's depression away. Alone-ness is blissful. Loneliness sucks.

she said son take care, don't let your dreams get too far out of sight - he said I love you, now, don't worry about me, you know i'll be fine

I spent the holiday weekend with my family thanks to a marathon of driving between New York and Maine, once again feeling that sense of relief as soon as I cross the state line. The air in Vacationland is subtly different from anywhere else that I've ever been - only in Maine can you drive across the Piscataqua River bridge, roll down your window, inhale, and smell the ocean, even though you are miles inland. It isn't the dockside smell though, nor the sudden explosion of pine trees and chickadee license plates - it's something subtle and impossible to name, some clarity of the air that makes you sit straighter and drive faster, scenting home in the wind.

The weather was kind after Friday, and we cut, tedded, baled, and stacked the first cut of hay off the field under the brilliant sun. The horses tore into it with abandon - one might almost have thought they preferred it to grain. As T.H. White would say, haying is not an activity, it's a way of life. Plenty of riding to be had, a brief foray into Freeport to brave the summer shoppers, and the annual pilgrimage into Portland for the fireworks on Monday night. We parked on Washington Ave. and climbed the steep pitch of the Eastern Prom until we came out overlooking the harbor. Instead of taking the barge into the middle of the harbor as usual, they apparently had moored it close to shore, and we were practically directly underneath the fireworks when they began. Also note, nylon sleeping bags on steep grassy slopes do not lend themselves well to immobility. Very impressive show, and very well choreographed to boot. About five false finales before the truly grand finale, and then, instead of ending there and then with the loudest bang, an artistic fifteen-second pause, and a single final enormous bloom of golden sparks and fiery trails that exploded into the silence and ended the show with subtlety and class. Showmanship.