For several hours yesterday, “Kenne’s Wi-Fi” was down thanks to our Internet provider, Comcast. There were problems with the Xfinity modem that I connect to “Kenne’s Airport Time Capsule which provides the wifi in our home and stores my digital world. The outage reminded me of how grateful I am of all the X’s and O’s that allow me to share our world — Life is a gift. I have posted several entries on “gifting” over the years. This is one that I frequently return to that includes a TED Talk by Louie Schwartzberg gratitude and some of his beautiful time-lapse photography illustrating the stunning beauty of nature. — kenne
Archive for November 2016
When Given A Gift, The Only Appropriate Response Is Gratefulness Leave a comment
Black & White Street Photo Essay Leave a comment
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Street Fair
Black & White Street Photo Essay by kenne
The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality,
and eventually in one’s own.
— Susan Sontag
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Capturing The Moment — Pelicans On The Pier 2 comments
The photos tell the story. — kenne
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Graber Olive Cannery Exterior Wall Mosaic II Leave a comment
Graber Olive Cannery Exterior Wall Mosaic II — Photo by kenne
“The palate with pine-sharpness. They recall
The harvest and its toil,
The nets spread under silver trees that foil
The blue glass of the heavens in the fall—
Daylight packed in treasuries of oil,”
— from Olives, by A.E. Stallings
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Graber Olive Cannery Exterior Wall Mosaic Leave a comment
Graber Olive Cannery Exterior Wall Mosaic — Photo by kenne
The Pits
Across from me my hostess sits
And counts my mounting olive pits
To throw her off and just for fun,
I think that I will swallow one.
— Richard Armour
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I Keep On Running 1 comment
Magnolia Blossoms — Image by kenne
I Keep On Running
I awake in time for
an early morning run,
magnolia blossoms opening in
the muggy East Texas air
pushed by squall lines
moving in from the Gulf,
moisture dropping occasionally
from the trees as I run
the sidewalk streets lined with
excessively large homes
and yards carved carefully
out of the woods,
having created a tragedy
of what was home
for what was meant to be
before society forgot
what it means to
embrace existence
without creating
self-imposed angst
in an irrational universe –
I keep on running
and running
and running
and running.
— kenne
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Sunrise On Wildhorse Trail Leave a comment
Sunrise On Wildhorse Trail — Image by kenne
No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have
no capacity for living now.
— Alan Watts
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Honky Tonk Angels Leave a comment
Honky Tonk Angels — Computer Art by kenne
“The Empathic Civilization is emerging. A younger generation is fast extending its empathic embrace beyond religious affiliations and national identification to include the whole of humanity and the vast project of life that envelops the Earth.”
– Jeremy Rifkin
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Seeing Through Their Eyes, Not With Them Leave a comment
Truman Capote — Image by Karl Bissinger
ART IN BLACK AND WHITE –SEEING THROUGH THEIR EYES, NOT WITH THEM
For years I have belonged to a monthly book club, “Society of the 5th Cave.” In November of 2008, the book selection was Portraits and Observations – The Essays of Truman Capote. Capote’s prose has superb style, as illustrated in this early morning walk in New Orleans:
“…I stopped still in the middle of a block, for I’d caught out of the corner of my eye a tunnel-passage, an overgrown courtyard. A crazy-looking white hound stood stiffly in the green fern light shinning at the tunnel’s end, and compulsively I went toward it. Inside there was a fountain; water spilled delicately from a monkey-statue’s bronze mouth and made on pool pebbles desolated bell-like sounds. He was hanging from a willow, a bandit-faced man with kinky platinum hair; he hung so limply, like the willow itself. There was terror in that silent suffocated garden. Closed windows looked on blindly; sail tracks glittered silver on elephant ears, nothing moved except his shadow.”
I love it, “…nothing moved except his shadow.”
However, the posting is not so much about Truman Capote as it’s about the photographer, Karl Bissinger, who died November 25, 2008. Bissinger photographed many artists, actors, and writers in the 1950’s, among them, Truman Capote.
Gore Vidal has written on the Bissinger image below (from left: ballerina Tanaquil LeClercq, novelist Donald Windham, artist Buffie Johnson, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal and Karl Bissinger):
“So study this picture, and see what optimistic people looked like as they began what they thought would be lifelong careers, and in some cases indeed lasted as we lost more and more of a country that is no country without Karl Bissinger to make art of it.”
kenne
Image by Karl Bissinger (Source — NY Times)
(First posted, November 28, 2008)
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Things Are As They Are — Grunge Art 1 comment
“Things Are as They Are” — Grunge Art by kenne
“Things are as they are.
Looking out into the universe at night,
we make no comparisons
between right and wrong stars,
nor between well and badly
arranged constellations.”
– Alan Watts.
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The Gifts That Keep On Giving 1 comment
Two Vessels — Computer Art by kenne
(First posted December 22, 2009)
The things that happen to us in life do so because we act. The more we act, the more opportunities we have upon which to act, the more we connect, creating a vessel filled with learning moments. If we don’t act on the moments, each will become an opportunity lost. Even so, it’s important not to think about what may have been left behind.
My vessel is an alchemy of acts from which new opportunities are poured – acts attract acts. Paulo Coelho wrote in his bestseller, The Alchemist, “There is only one way to learn,” the alchemist answered. “It’s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.”
It was ten years ago that I first read Coelho’s enchanting fable. It was in preparation for leading a group of four young professionals to the state of Sáo Paulo in Brazil that I learned of Paulo Coelho and his 1988 novel. The book fits well into my own philosophy and sets the tone for the trip and remains instrumental in my life.
Again, one act leads to another when, at this past Sunday’s Society of the 5th Cave reading club meeting, The Alchemist was selected for the March reading. Once again, the concept of alchemy is front stage, this time from a different perspective, which will create many new learning moments.
I’m pleased to be reading this inspiring book ten years out. The Alchemist is the gift that keeps on giving. Just today I received an email from my brother Tom, reminding me of someone I have also not read in recent years, American poet, Conrad Aiken, which my poem “Solstice Night,” told him of the first lines from Aiken’s long poem, “The House of Dust.”
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
In turn, his reminding me of Conrad Aiken, and the return of The Alchemist, that reminded me of the following from Aiken’s poem, “A Letter from Li Po.”
What’s true in these, or false? which is the ‘I’
of ‘I’s’? Is it the master of the cadence, who
transforms all things to a hoop of flame, where through
tigers of meaning leap? And are these true,
the language never old and never new,
such as the world wears on its wedding day,
the something borrowed with something chicory blue?
In every part we play, we play ourselves;
even the secret doubt to which we come
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing,
yes, even this, at last, if we should call
and dare to name it, we would find
the only voice that answers is our own.
We are once more defrauded by the mind.
Defrauded? No. It is the alchemy by which we grow.
It is the self-becoming word, the word
becoming world. And with each part we play
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum.
Who knows but one day we shall find,
hidden in the prism at the rainbow’s foot,
the square root of the eccentric absolute,
and the concentric absolute to come.
Life has so many gifts that keep on giving. Become a part of the act.
kenne
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Intuitive Thought, “I Know It When I See It!” 1 comment
“I Know It When I See It!”
In trying to explain what is obscene, Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart uttered the now famous phrase, “I know it when I see it.” Each one of us may have used similar phrases when shopping during this holiday season. “I’m not sure what I want to buy her, but I will know it when I see it.”
But, what exactly is “it”? Defining what we mean can be an abstract exercise. “It” is often used as a generic expression of “worth,” but can take on a different meaning for different people. Why is this?
How we define “it” is a reflection of context, values, experiences, and expectations. “It” can be referring to a quality of service, art, craftsmanship, functionality, all of which are intended to identify, codify and communicate our expectations. So, is “it” really an abstraction?
The test for “knowing it when you see it” is expressed in behavior. As a young man, I loved going to the Chicago Art Institute. I could spend hours staring at masterpieces, surrounded, in the silence of others, sharing art that has endured the test of time. Such silence, in the face of beauty, speaks volumes.
Seek not to define
You know it when you see it —
Define it, lose it!
kenne
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“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.” 1 comment
Computer Art by kenne
“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”
– Jean Baptiste Massieu
These are the days of the endless summer
These are the days, the time is now
There is no past, there’s only future
There’s only here, there’s only now
Oh, your smiling face, your gracious presence
Oh, the fires of spring are kindling bright
Oh the radiant heart and the song of glory
They’re crying freedom in the night
These are the days by the sparkling river
His timely grace and our treasured find
This is the love of the one magician
Turned the water into wine
These are days of the endless dancing
And the long walks on the summer night
These are the days of the true romancing
When I’m holding you oh so tight
These are the days by the sparkling river
And His timely grace and the treasured find
This is the love of the one great magician
Turned the water into wine
These are the days now that we must savor
And we must enjoy as we can
These are the days that will last forever
You got to hold them in your heart
These are the days
These are the days
These are the days
These are the days
These are the days
These Are the Days, by Van Morrison
These Are the Days Video
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Hutch’s Pool Hike, November 18, 2016 Leave a comment
West Fork Trail
Taking a Break at Hutch’s Pool
Phil having a bite to eat
Hutch’s Pool
Hutch’s Pool
Hutch’s Pool
Hutch’s Pool
Unknown Jaw Bone
Daughter & Mother from New York
Returning on West Fork Trail
Desert Brum
Desert Brum
Fall Colors in Sabino Basin
Fall Colors in Sabino Basin
Fall Colors in Sabino Basin
West Fork Trail
West Fork Trail
End of the trail
Upper Sabino Canyon Panorama
November 18, 2016, SCVN Friday hike was to Hutch’s Pool, one of our favorite hikes in the Santa Catalina Mountains. Here are some of the photos for your review. Click on any of the images to see a larger view in a slideshow format. Enjoy! — Images by kenne
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One Is Lonely, Two Is Company, Three’s A Crowd Leave a comment
“One Is Lonely, Two Is Company, Three’s A Crowd” — Image by kenne
If one is lonely
Two’s company, three’s a crowd
So hit the road, Jack.
— kenne
(First Posted, October 2013)
