Philosophical Investigator

There was a party at Bedrock.

2009-06-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

We incorporated
a
door
found
out
by
the dumpster
in back.

The next
day
it
looked
like
this.

Everybody
used the door as a frame for a portrait.

Two examples follow.

It was a good party.

Blue Arc

2009-06-08T22:01:00.000-07:00

Another day

another paint tray

*

intriguing tedium of majestic monotony

*

Quarry bonfire Saturday night

2009-05-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

Then
this morning I read in Geoff Dyer's YOGA FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO DO IT
A quote from Roland Barthes, "Burn what you whorship . . . and whorship what you burn."

Soon
the
guitars
will
become
a
funeral
pyre

Getting more traction in Livingston, MT

2009-05-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

Saw this rig
while on a quick
road trip to Big Timber

Greetings from Southern Utah

2009-05-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

Near Carl's place outside Boulder.

A small sampling from

2009-02-24T20:32:00.000-08:00

The Barnhart Brothers & Spindler Type Catalog of 1925.

Foundry poetry @ its best.

Suzi Gablik went to Black Mountain

2009-02-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

Did you know that?

What a place and time!

Gablik mentions here: http://virgilspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/02/black-mountain-college-revisited.html

that Michael Rumaker has written a memoir of his time there.

(I didn't know Rumaker went to Black Mountain.)

I learned this from following a Silliman drone-bot poetic list

There should be armies of poets following Silliman's links

&

I suppose there are.

*

The Harmony of the Squares

2009-02-16T19:31:00.000-08:00

Cubes of silence

*

bales of air

*

"Consciousness is a property of minute patches on the warm surfaces of mild planets."
(P. W. Atkins)

*

buckets of music

rain of anvils

cans of laughter

butterflies forged in iron

*

"We must get rid of our superstitious valuation of texts and written poetry. Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed."
(Artaud)

*

Here's a poem to read once and then forget. It is called:

THE DEFINITION OF SENTIENCE

a soul
is
"at home"
in
galactic
space

a soul
"feels"

alone

only

in a body

*

CABLES TO THE ACE

2009-02-14T19:04:00.000-08:00

OR: FAMILIAR LITURGIES OF MISUNDERSTANDING

Such is the title of a book of poems I'm reading by Thomas Merton from 1967.
(This picture means nothing in relation to the book
but then
what
does anything mean in relation to anything else:)

"3
Decoding the looks of opposites. Writing down their silences. Words replaced by moods. Actions punctuated by the hard fall of imperatives. More and more smoke. Since language has become a medium in which we are totally immersed, there is no longer any need to say anything. The saying says itself all around us. No one need attend. Listening is obsolete. So is silence. Each one travels alone in a small blue capsule of indignation. (Some of the better informed have declared war on language.)"

Thomas Merton: prophet of the internet? "Listening is obsolete."

The language of this "poetry" is totally contemporary:

The title poem begins:

"Edifying cables can be made musical if played and sung by full-armed societies doomed to an electric war. A heavy imperturbable beat. No indication where to stop. No messages to decode. Cables are never causes. Noises are never values. With the unending vroom vroom vroom of the guitars we will all learn a new kind of obstinacy, together with massive lessons of irony and refusal. We assist once again at the marriage of heaven and hell."

Well, perhaps not "totally" contemporary.

Who sends "cables" any more?

But then XX years from now we will ask, "What's an email?"

However, we will still be washing and drying our hands; or will we?

Not Everything We Do

2009-02-12T20:36:00.000-08:00

Is full of color

this recent house we workd on--

call it

the "winter palace"--

is pale, dessicated--

and yet

. .. . . .. .. . .. . . .

You Asked For It

2009-02-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

More fake art
from the real world

Actual paint tray residues
posing as abstract paintings

Rigorously random effects
created under carefully controlled circumstances

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

2009 will be fine.

These elegantly dressed ladies watch the new year open with placid calm.

Micro-bliss

2008-12-04T23:53:00.000-08:00

Spider plant blossom over box forms

Great clouds outside of Great Falls

2008-11-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

Drove into these blowing clouds of snow the other day

as we returned from Monarch.

Perhaps we should call it

gigantic sky country.

This fat old sunflower

2008-10-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

loomed over the back yard late this summer.

Gone now, composted, it enters the midden of history.

But just before it fell over, succumbing to frost and gravity

it handed me an envelope: It's absentee ballot; another vote for Obama.

Recently acquired book:

2008-09-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Mary MacLane's third, and last, title.
Published in 1917, it is a sequel to her famous THE STORY OF MARY MacLANE.
Unsurprisingly it is about . . . herself.

But what of the San Francisco bookstore that carried the title, what, some 80 years ago?

White House Books.

I look forward to browsing there soon.

Sunset on Flathead Lake

2008-09-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

Recently spent a few days on Flathead Lake . . .

Waves undulating on the shore

. . .

Then, back in Helena

A party on Rodney Street

Ululations and more

undulating

. . .

It's been a good summer.

Two new images.

2008-08-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

The whole paint tray series could be called "Listening to Paint Dry"

Meanwhile, history proceeds on.

Will technology eclipse christianity?

Or, will Jesus have the last laugh

and eat western history for brunch?

John Hanson Live at Bedrock

2008-08-02T17:39:00.000-07:00

Wandering troubadour/monk/blogger/spirit

John Hanson passed through Helena last week

played some songs for a while

*

people smiled

prayed

stood by in stupified ceramic wonder

*

we sang a-
long
we did not sing some-
times we sat
without singing a-
tall
we sang but not a-
lot
if we sang a-
lways
there would
be no silence:
the greatest song of a-
gog

There are flightless birds

2008-07-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

and then there are birdless wings

saw this on the street a few days ago

Real world events.

2008-05-12T18:15:00.000-07:00

A recent paint tray.

Random rectangles

on rain-wet sidewalk.

Spring Snow

2008-04-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

Not just a great novel my Mishima!

This spring has been bountious with snow

This half-eaten snow frosted doughnut
(of unknown material)
was outside of Bedrock the other afternoon.

"Photography is inherently fragmentary . . ." writes Robert Adams on the last page of a recent book.

At first I thought this was profound. Upon continued reflection it seems platitudinous.

Isn't all art inherently fragmentary? Consciousness is inherently fragmentary.

Baseball is inherently fragmentary. Pitch by pitch.

*

Photography is inherently unifying.

Yet another picture of my favorite two-headed eagle.

2008-04-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

With a triangle on its heads.

What does it mean?

Oh, and a recent tray.

Frozen chaos of the everyday.

Red Ink

2008-04-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

Next I need a big bottle of black ink.

*

Claes Oldenburg?

2008-04-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

This looks like a gigantic sculpture to me.