it's been six months since i started this project. i'd never intended to make an entry per day, but having just crossed the threshold of a full week without posting, it feels like it's time to review.
a convergence of conditions. as usual.
several months ago while listening to bill bryson i experienced deep existential dread. he was expounding upon the history of taxonomy (for his book, a short history of nearly everything, which perhaps would be better titled isn't everything just amazing and also fucked). basically, naming things and categorizing them is an area where humans can't agree much, even today.
this "log" was an experiment as a sort of linear catch-all broadcast of various projects, discoveries, interests, sudden convictions, etc. of course this is totally fine, but as the bits accumulate certain patterns emerge but overall it resembles a meticulously over-curated scrapbook without an index.
in many ways it makes more sense to just build a memex. projects go into categories, and so those projects actually become projects, instead of some underdocumented stuff in a stream of tenuously related stuff.
yet not everything is a project. for example, i considered (earlier this week) highlighting a discovery: the composer rip hayman [bandcamp], who made this incredible layered flute composition in 1977, just re-released.
or i nearly posted some thoughts related to this excellent essay, the user condition: computer agency and bevahior [web].
and i also considered deleting some previous posts which were just a little boring, or perhaps were created during some extreme mood. certain things weren't meant to last forever. digital permanence gives me anxiety on several levels.
so is it a journal? i do think this has helped me sustain momentum. to not lose the plot. (i admit, i did still manage to drift a few times).
and there's more that i haven't fully processed. public vs private. behavioral shifts, performative publishing, identity construction. feedback and conversation. optimal update frequency. technical accesibility, platform context contamination. meaning, now and tomorrow.
in closing.
i may pause this. to restructure and transform energy. it'll change, but it'll be the same.
our wok continues to transcribe stories
most fading slowly until erased through interweaving
despite retellings
while ambiguous semi-poetic language may be thought to obscure meaning, it also allows multiple interpretations to be embraced. all of our conflicting truths and stories can coexist on some level.
so now we know what
six yards of wood chips
looks like and our bodies know what
six yards of wood chips
feels like
is it ok to have a favorite?
the softest (japanese larch)
the most astonishing (curved-trunk apple)
the beloved species (american sycamore)
the mysterious (hollow-trunk cherry)
the best climb (mountainside ladder-branched sugar maple)
the revered (three grandmothers)
but this shagbark hickory we planted eleven years ago is a magnetic spirit.
the correlate to the rarely spoken mantra
nobody is special
is the pervasive, misread, and drippy
everyone is special
which, in the right light, can be let through
(but there still might be a favorite)
this may marks the fifteenth year of monome. and so we released a redesigned grid. it's approximately the eleventh redesign. (i say approximately because qualification is blurry, and that doesn't include the prototypes prior to the inaugural edition in 2006).
this round number 15 (which is actually 20 including the pre-production years) felt like it merited some level of acknowledgement. i started writing a "history of the grid" which quickly sprawled a dozen pages even before i reached 2006: it became a sort of memoir.
and so the art (self) business (corp) dichotomy debate quietly reemerged. trying to detangle what and why to share certain things. to sort meaning from deafening noise and false conviction. to share moments and thank sincerely without overexposure or inevitable misinterpretation.
there is a story. but perhaps a new grid is enough.
there are also apple blossoms in which to immerse ourselves.
foraged violet, ceramic by kelli cain, worn table made from the salvaged hemlock joists of our two hundred year old house.
today we discovered the closet was locked, from the inside. a few weeks ago we finished walling it in, not having used the door because the wall was just, well, open all the time.
so we re-opened the wall to unlock the door. sadly this story did not end with the discovery of long forgotten treasure.
we lived in a city, dreaming of life amidst heavy-laden fruit trees.
twelve years on, this plum's blossoms suggest that just maybe, we are here.
addition to the obscure specialized tool collection: okuda shiitake innoculation stick.
this year is snow cap shiitake in sugar maple. eighteen new logs.
horse chestnut arriving with new colors to share.
"You are strangling your life-force with words. Do not live your life searching around for answers in your word-hoard. You will find only words to rationalize your experience. Allow yourself to open up to wyrd and it will cleanse, renew, change, and develop your casket of reason. Your word-hoard should serve your experience, not the reverse."
brian bates - the way of wyrd (1983)
still reflecting on nan shepherd's the living mountain.
her writing is keenly perceptive, exhuberant, deeply appreciative: wholly celebrating the natural world. a resonating analogue of psilocybin-unveiled all-one-ness. eyes open. all senses open. mind open.