Late June Afternoon On Bourbon Street — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Full of the profane
We walk this temporal street
Yet something sacred.
— kenne
Late June Afternoon On Bourbon Street — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— kenne
Bee On A Desert Chicory Wildflower — Photo-Artistry by kenne
“The primitive notion of the efficacy of images
presumes that images possess the qualities of real things,
but our inclination is to attribute real things the quality of images.”
— Susan Sontag
Sky and Earth — Image by kenne
— kenne
Sabino Canyon Viewed from Blackett’s Ridge — Panorama by kenne
— kenne
A Mushroom Triad — Photo-Artistry kenne
Ars Poetica
— Achibald MacLeish
Computer Art by kenne (November 26, 2005)
In November of 2006, I posted the following noting the first anniversary of blogging:
. . . One year ago, 135 entries later and approximately 9,500 hits, this blog began with the purpose of sharing existence through the experience of one with the desire to generate other views on our place in time and space. In doing so, I have come to the realization that this poetic gesture may be nothing more than bullshit to someone else.
So, on the anniversary I’m taking this moment to share a few words from the renowned moral philosopher, Harry G. Frankfurt:
“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so
much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his
share.”
And I would add, some more than others.
But then, one person’s truth is someone else’s bullshit.
“As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things,
and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them.
Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in
experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is
the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know.
Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to
skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively
insubstantial – notoriously less stable and less inherent than
the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case,
sincerity itself is bullshit.”
This view may cause some confusion.
But, not in our upside-down world
in which the normal order of things
seem to be completely reversed.
This often exists because the
, “. . .more you try to stay
on top of water the more you sink;
but when you try to sink, you float.”
kenne
Sabino Canyon Dam at Christmas Time — Computer Painting by kenne
Christmas time is when it’s the riparian zone of the Lower Sabino Canyon’s turn to display colorful leaves long since fallen at the higher elevations. Soon the colder night temperatures will hasten leaves departing their home for the last nine months. Officially, the desert winter has begun now hosting many species of migrating birds, which attract many nature lovers such as photographer and blogger, Henry Johnson. A few days ago he posted, “Sabino Canyon in December: Part I, Birds.”
kenne
Photo-Artistry by kenne
Existence
Today I read about someone who keeps a “gratitude journal” and thought, “What a great idea?”
Continuing the thought, I concluded that I already keep a gratitude journal, this blog.
Life is a gift. Each day is filled with blessings — just by posting daily, I’m able to express gratitude.
–kenne
Street Scene — Image by kenne
Early Morning Dreams: The Awakening and Starting All Over — Image by kenne
— Patti Smith, Early Work, 1970-1979
“Hello Darkness My Old Friend — Image by kenne
“Hello, Darkness My Old Friend…”
“Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk to you again,”
is a line from the Simon and Garfunkel song that frequently streams
through my mind.
It is in those moments of darkness that I ponder what it is that continues to
influence the way I think, the way I perceive the world in which we live.
“Because a vision softly creeping left its seed, while I was sleeping,”
that I look back on the early formative days of my life, a time now
that seems as if I was sleeping. But the vision, which became the moral
fabric of my spirit and guiding light, was formed.
“And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence.”
A vision built on principles and truths that guide me, which today are preached,
only to become somebody else’s lies in the name of freedom.
How can we believe in freedom, let support systems that enslave some for the
freedom of others? – No one is truly free unless all are free.
“In restless dreams, I walk alone, narrow streets of cobblestone”
yet I remain restless as I walk through this land of dreams, with its narrow
streams of conciseness and watchful eyes.
“I turned my collar to the cold and damp when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light,”
serving to numb the spirit, only to
“…split the night and touch the sound of silence.”
“And in the naked light, I saw ten thousand people, maybe more,”
none together, separated by their own silence, giving rise to more lies,
cultivated by and for fear.
“People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening,”
as the silence only serves to drown the anguish of the suffering to be replaced
by corporate voices. Let, many continue to
“…write songs that voices never shared, and no one dared disturb the sound of silence,”
in a propaganda system intended to cause people to feel helpless.
“ ’Fools!’ said I, ‘you do not know, silence like a cancer grows,”
in a terminal phase of human existence, where the only cure is
democracy and freedom. But for this cure to work, our basic institutions must be
under popular control, not that of a privileged controlling class.
“Hear my words that I might teach you, take my arms that I might reach you,”
for it is only the people who can impose moral principles on the gods of fear.
“But my words like silent raindrops fell… and echoed in the wells of silence. And
the people bowed and prayed to the neon gods they make,”
to show commitment to their gladiators, the gods of war.
“And the sign flashed out it’s warning,
In the words that it was forming,
And the sign said,
‘The words of the prophets are written
On the subway walls
And tenement halls.’
And whispered in the sound of silence.”
I apologize for any perceived misuse of the great lyrics from the
Simon and Garfunkel song, “Sounds of Silence.”
(First posted January 27, 2007 — Still pondering after all these years.)
— kenne
The Desert’s Door To The Sky, The Remains of An Old Ranch House In The Tortolita Mountains
— Image by kenne
THE DESERT RANCHER ON SUNDAY
by Jeffrey Alfier
Winds release clouds from the tread of drifting
but buoy the arcs of loitering hawks.
It’s so quiet he swears he hears sunlight,
Chihuahuan sage blossoming in clusters.
Where his footfalls impel a warbler’s flight,
distant church bells summon their own echoes.
He kneels, presses palms to parched tractor ruts
that angle off into wind-runneled fields.
Thin soil keeps him for another season,
the ground made of nothing his hands won’t hold.
— from The Silver Birch Press Publication, The Wold Yearling, by Jeffrey C. Alfier
Desert Tortoise In Our Courtyard
Lately he has wanted out of the courtyard area.
He is getting bored — it is mating season.
He had made several attempt to get out, that I’m aware of.
Often with this result — not to worry, he can right himself up.
Life Goes Go — Images by kenne
Texas Blues Friends at Papa’s Ice House in The Woodlands, Texas (June 2002)