...actually this is extremely lame
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The Dream of the 1490's is alive
so I've decided that hooded capes are a must have in everyone's wardrobe. I mean c'mon a zipline is one thing but riding it with a cape like you're Harry Potter or a Jedi? that's where it's at...
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Original Essay By Edgar Allen Poe
The Philosophy of Furniture
In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, _meliora probant, deteriora _sequuntur - the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are _poor _decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are _all _curtains - a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous.
How this happens, it is not difficult to see. We have no aristocracy of blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars, the _display of wealth _has here to take the place and perform the office of the heraldic display in monarchical countries. By a transition readily understood, and which might have been as readily foreseen, we have been brought to merge in simple _show _our notions of taste itself
To speak less abstractly. In England, for example, no mere parade of costly appurtenances would be so likely as with us, to create an impression of the beautiful in respect to the appurtenances themselves - or of taste as regards the proprietor: - this for the reason, first, that wealth is not, in England, the loftiest object of ambition as constituting a nobility; and secondly, that there, the true nobility of blood, confining itself within the strict limits of legitimate taste, rather avoids than affects that mere costliness in which a _parvenu _rivalry may at any time be successfully attempted.
The people _will _imitate the nobles, and the result is a thorough diffusion of the proper feeling. But in America, the coins current being the sole arms of the aristocracy, their display may be said, in general, to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace, looking always upward for models,,are insensibly led to confound the two entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly the sole test of its merit in a decorative point of view - and this test, once established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily traceable to the one primitive folly.
There could be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist than the interior of what is termed in the United States - that is to say, in Appallachia - a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual defect is a want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would of the keeping of a picture - for both the picture and the room are amenable to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of art; and very nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher merits of a painting, suffice for decision on the adjustment of a chamber.
A want of keeping is observable sometimes in the character of the several pieces of furniture, but generally in their colours or modes of adaptation to use _Very _often the eye is offended by their inartistic arrangement. Straight lines are too prevalent - too uninterruptedly continued - or clumsily interrupted at right angles. If curved lines occur, they are repeated into unpleasant uniformity. By undue precision, the appearance of many a fine apartment is utterly spoiled.__
Curtains are rarely well disposed, or well chosen in respect to other decorations. With formal furniture, curtains are out of place; and an extensive volume of drapery of any kind is, under any circumstance, irreconcilable with good taste - the proper quantum, as well as the proper adjustment, depending upon the character of the general effect.
Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we still very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of a carpet _must be _a genius. Yet we have heard discoursing of carpets, with the air "_d'un mouton qui reve," _fellows who should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their own _moustaches. _Every one knows that a large floor _may _have a covering of large figures, and that a small one must have a covering of small - yet this is not all the knowledge in the world. As regards texture, the Saxony is alone admissible. Brussels is the preterpluperfect tense of fashion, and Turkey is taste in its dying agonies. Touching pattern - a carpet should _not _be bedizzened out like a Riccaree Indian - all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock's feathers. In brief - distinct grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, _of no meaning, _are here Median laws. The abomination of flowers, or representations of well-known objects of any kind, should not be endured within the limits of Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this nature should be rigidly Arabesque. As for those antique floor-cloth & still occasionally seen in the dwellings of the rabble - cloths of huge, sprawling, and radiating devises, stripe-interspersed, and glorious with all hues, among which no ground is intelligible-these are but the wicked invention of a race of time-servers and money-lovers - children of Baal and worshippers of Mammon - Benthams, who, to spare thought and economize fancy, first cruelly invented the Kaleidoscope, and then established joint-stock companies to twirl it by steam.
_ Glare is _a leading error in the philosophy of American household decoration - an error easily recognised as deduced from the perversion of taste just specified., We are violently enamoured of gas and of glass. The former is totally inadmissible within doors. Its harsh and unsteady light offends. No one having both brains and eyes will use it. A mild, or what artists term a cool light, with its consequent warm shadows, will do wonders for even an ill-furnished apartment. Never was a more lovely thought than that of the astral lamp. We mean, of course, the astral lamp proper - the lamp of Argand, with its original plain ground-glass shade, and its tempered and uniform moonlight rays. The cut-glass shade is a weak invention of the enemy. The eagerness with which we have adopted it, partly on account of its _flashiness, _but principally on account of its _greater rest, is _a good commentary on the proposition with which we began. It is not too much to say, that the deliberate employer of a cut-glass shade, is either radically deficient in taste, or blindly subservient to the caprices of fashion. The light proceeding from one of these gaudy abominations is unequal broken, and painful. It alone is sufficient to mar a world of good effect in the furniture subjected to its influence. Female loveliness, in especial, is more than one-half disenchanted beneath its evil eye.
In the matter of glass, generally, we proceed upon false principles. Its leading feature is _glitter - _and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express ! Flickering, unquiet lights, are _sometimes _pleasing - to children and idiots always so - but in the embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth, even strong _steady _lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade, which dangle in our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the quintessence of all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly.
The rage for _glitter-_because its idea has become as we before observed, confounded with that of magnificence in the abstract-has led us, also, to the exaggerated employment of mirrors. We line our dwellings with great British plates, and then imagine we have done a fine thing. Now the slightest thought will be sufficient to convince any one who has an eye at all, of the ill effect of numerous looking-glasses, and especially of large ones. Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror presents a continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface, - a thing always and obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector, it is potent in producing a monstrous and odious uniformity: and the evil is here aggravated, not in merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its sources, but in a ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing effects. The veriest bumpkin, on entering an apartment so bedizzened, would be instantly aware of something wrong, although he might be altogether unable to assign a cause for his dissatisfaction. But let the same person be led into a room tastefully furnished, and he would be startled into an exclamation of pleasure and surprise.__
It is an evil growing out of our republican institutions, that here a man of large purse has usually a very little soul which he keeps in it. The corruption of taste is a portion or a pendant of the dollar-manufac sure. As we grow rich, our ideas grow rusty. It is, therefore, not among _our _aristocracy that we must look (if at all, in Appallachia), for the spirituality of a British _boudoir. _But we have seen apartments in the tenure of Americans of moderns [possibly "modest" or "moderate"] means, which, in negative merit at least, might vie with any of the _or-molu'd _cabinets of our friends across the water. Even _now_, there is present to our mind's eye a small and not, ostentatious chamber with whose decorations no fault can be found. The proprietor lies asleep on a sofa - the weather is cool - the time is near midnight: arc will make a sketch of the room during his slumber.
It is oblong - some thirty feet in length and twenty-five in breadth - a shape affording the best(ordinary) opportunities for the adjustment of furniture. It has but one door - by no means a wide one - which is at one end of the parallelogram, and but two windows, which are at the other. These latter are large, reaching down to the floor - have deep recesses - and open on an Italian _veranda. _Their panes are of a crimson-tinted glass, set in rose-wood framings, more massive than usual. They are curtained within the recess, by a thick silver tissue adapted to the shape of the window, and hanging loosely in small volumes. Without the recess are curtains of an exceedingly rich crimson silk, fringed with a deep network of gold, and lined with silver tissue, which is the material of the exterior blind. There are no cornices; but the folds of the whole fabric (which are sharp rather than massive, and have an airy appearance), issue from beneath a broad entablature of rich giltwork, which encircles the room at the junction of the ceiling and walls. The drapery is thrown open also, or closed, by means of a thick rope of gold loosely enveloping it, and resolving itself readily into a knot; no pins or other such devices are apparent. The colours of the curtains and their fringe - the tints of crimson and gold - appear everywhere in profusion, and determine the _character _of the room. The carpet - of Saxony material - is quite half an inch thick, and is of the same crimson ground, relieved simply by the appearance of a gold cord (like that festooning the curtains) slightly relieved above the surface of the _ground, _and thrown upon it in such a manner as to form a succession of short irregular curves - one occasionally overlaying the other. The walls are prepared with a glossy paper of a silver gray tint, spotted with small Arabesque devices of a fainter hue of the prevalent crimson. Many paintings relieve the expanse of paper. These are chiefly landscapes of an imaginative cast-such as the fairy grottoes of Stanfield, or the lake of the Dismal Swamp of Chapman. There are, nevertheless, three or four female heads, of an ethereal beauty-portraits in the manner of Sully. The tone of each picture is warm, but dark. There are no "brilliant effects." _Repose _speaks in all. Not one is of small size. Diminutive paintings give that _spotty _look to a room, which is the blemish of so many a fine work of Art overtouched. The frames are broad but not deep, and richly carved, without being _dulled _or filagreed. They have the whole lustre of burnished gold. They lie flat on the walls, and do not hang off with cords. The designs themselves are often seen to better advantage in this latter position, but the general appearance of the chamber is injured. But one mirror - and this not a very large one - is visible. In shape it is nearly circular - and it is hung so that a reflection of the person can be obtained from it in none of the ordinary sitting-places of the room. Two large low sofas of rosewood and crimson silk, gold-flowered, form the only seats, with the exception of two light conversation chairs, also of rose-wood. There is a pianoforte (rose-wood, also), without cover, and thrown open. An octagonal table, formed altogether of the richest gold-threaded marble, is placed near one of the sofas. This is also without cover - the drapery of the curtains has been thought sufficient.. Four large and gorgeous Sevres vases, in which bloom a profusion of sweet and vivid flowers, occupy the slightly rounded angles of the room. A tall candelabrum, bearing a small antique lamp with highly perfumed oil, is standing near the head of my sleeping friend. Some light and graceful hanging shelves, with golden edges and crimson silk cords with gold tassels, sustain two or three hundred magnificently bound books. Beyond these things, there is no furniture, if we except an Argand lamp, with a plain crimson-tinted ground glass shade, which depends from He lofty vaulted ceiling by a single slender gold chain, and throws a tranquil but magical radiance over all.
-THE END- Edgar Allan Poe's essay: Philosophy of Furniture
In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, _meliora probant, deteriora _sequuntur - the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are _poor _decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are _all _curtains - a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous.
How this happens, it is not difficult to see. We have no aristocracy of blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars, the _display of wealth _has here to take the place and perform the office of the heraldic display in monarchical countries. By a transition readily understood, and which might have been as readily foreseen, we have been brought to merge in simple _show _our notions of taste itself
To speak less abstractly. In England, for example, no mere parade of costly appurtenances would be so likely as with us, to create an impression of the beautiful in respect to the appurtenances themselves - or of taste as regards the proprietor: - this for the reason, first, that wealth is not, in England, the loftiest object of ambition as constituting a nobility; and secondly, that there, the true nobility of blood, confining itself within the strict limits of legitimate taste, rather avoids than affects that mere costliness in which a _parvenu _rivalry may at any time be successfully attempted.
The people _will _imitate the nobles, and the result is a thorough diffusion of the proper feeling. But in America, the coins current being the sole arms of the aristocracy, their display may be said, in general, to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace, looking always upward for models,,are insensibly led to confound the two entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly the sole test of its merit in a decorative point of view - and this test, once established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily traceable to the one primitive folly.
There could be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist than the interior of what is termed in the United States - that is to say, in Appallachia - a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual defect is a want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would of the keeping of a picture - for both the picture and the room are amenable to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of art; and very nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher merits of a painting, suffice for decision on the adjustment of a chamber.
A want of keeping is observable sometimes in the character of the several pieces of furniture, but generally in their colours or modes of adaptation to use _Very _often the eye is offended by their inartistic arrangement. Straight lines are too prevalent - too uninterruptedly continued - or clumsily interrupted at right angles. If curved lines occur, they are repeated into unpleasant uniformity. By undue precision, the appearance of many a fine apartment is utterly spoiled.__
Curtains are rarely well disposed, or well chosen in respect to other decorations. With formal furniture, curtains are out of place; and an extensive volume of drapery of any kind is, under any circumstance, irreconcilable with good taste - the proper quantum, as well as the proper adjustment, depending upon the character of the general effect.
Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we still very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of a carpet _must be _a genius. Yet we have heard discoursing of carpets, with the air "_d'un mouton qui reve," _fellows who should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their own _moustaches. _Every one knows that a large floor _may _have a covering of large figures, and that a small one must have a covering of small - yet this is not all the knowledge in the world. As regards texture, the Saxony is alone admissible. Brussels is the preterpluperfect tense of fashion, and Turkey is taste in its dying agonies. Touching pattern - a carpet should _not _be bedizzened out like a Riccaree Indian - all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock's feathers. In brief - distinct grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, _of no meaning, _are here Median laws. The abomination of flowers, or representations of well-known objects of any kind, should not be endured within the limits of Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this nature should be rigidly Arabesque. As for those antique floor-cloth & still occasionally seen in the dwellings of the rabble - cloths of huge, sprawling, and radiating devises, stripe-interspersed, and glorious with all hues, among which no ground is intelligible-these are but the wicked invention of a race of time-servers and money-lovers - children of Baal and worshippers of Mammon - Benthams, who, to spare thought and economize fancy, first cruelly invented the Kaleidoscope, and then established joint-stock companies to twirl it by steam.
_ Glare is _a leading error in the philosophy of American household decoration - an error easily recognised as deduced from the perversion of taste just specified., We are violently enamoured of gas and of glass. The former is totally inadmissible within doors. Its harsh and unsteady light offends. No one having both brains and eyes will use it. A mild, or what artists term a cool light, with its consequent warm shadows, will do wonders for even an ill-furnished apartment. Never was a more lovely thought than that of the astral lamp. We mean, of course, the astral lamp proper - the lamp of Argand, with its original plain ground-glass shade, and its tempered and uniform moonlight rays. The cut-glass shade is a weak invention of the enemy. The eagerness with which we have adopted it, partly on account of its _flashiness, _but principally on account of its _greater rest, is _a good commentary on the proposition with which we began. It is not too much to say, that the deliberate employer of a cut-glass shade, is either radically deficient in taste, or blindly subservient to the caprices of fashion. The light proceeding from one of these gaudy abominations is unequal broken, and painful. It alone is sufficient to mar a world of good effect in the furniture subjected to its influence. Female loveliness, in especial, is more than one-half disenchanted beneath its evil eye.
In the matter of glass, generally, we proceed upon false principles. Its leading feature is _glitter - _and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express ! Flickering, unquiet lights, are _sometimes _pleasing - to children and idiots always so - but in the embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth, even strong _steady _lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade, which dangle in our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the quintessence of all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly.
The rage for _glitter-_because its idea has become as we before observed, confounded with that of magnificence in the abstract-has led us, also, to the exaggerated employment of mirrors. We line our dwellings with great British plates, and then imagine we have done a fine thing. Now the slightest thought will be sufficient to convince any one who has an eye at all, of the ill effect of numerous looking-glasses, and especially of large ones. Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror presents a continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface, - a thing always and obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector, it is potent in producing a monstrous and odious uniformity: and the evil is here aggravated, not in merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its sources, but in a ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing effects. The veriest bumpkin, on entering an apartment so bedizzened, would be instantly aware of something wrong, although he might be altogether unable to assign a cause for his dissatisfaction. But let the same person be led into a room tastefully furnished, and he would be startled into an exclamation of pleasure and surprise.__
It is an evil growing out of our republican institutions, that here a man of large purse has usually a very little soul which he keeps in it. The corruption of taste is a portion or a pendant of the dollar-manufac sure. As we grow rich, our ideas grow rusty. It is, therefore, not among _our _aristocracy that we must look (if at all, in Appallachia), for the spirituality of a British _boudoir. _But we have seen apartments in the tenure of Americans of moderns [possibly "modest" or "moderate"] means, which, in negative merit at least, might vie with any of the _or-molu'd _cabinets of our friends across the water. Even _now_, there is present to our mind's eye a small and not, ostentatious chamber with whose decorations no fault can be found. The proprietor lies asleep on a sofa - the weather is cool - the time is near midnight: arc will make a sketch of the room during his slumber.
It is oblong - some thirty feet in length and twenty-five in breadth - a shape affording the best(ordinary) opportunities for the adjustment of furniture. It has but one door - by no means a wide one - which is at one end of the parallelogram, and but two windows, which are at the other. These latter are large, reaching down to the floor - have deep recesses - and open on an Italian _veranda. _Their panes are of a crimson-tinted glass, set in rose-wood framings, more massive than usual. They are curtained within the recess, by a thick silver tissue adapted to the shape of the window, and hanging loosely in small volumes. Without the recess are curtains of an exceedingly rich crimson silk, fringed with a deep network of gold, and lined with silver tissue, which is the material of the exterior blind. There are no cornices; but the folds of the whole fabric (which are sharp rather than massive, and have an airy appearance), issue from beneath a broad entablature of rich giltwork, which encircles the room at the junction of the ceiling and walls. The drapery is thrown open also, or closed, by means of a thick rope of gold loosely enveloping it, and resolving itself readily into a knot; no pins or other such devices are apparent. The colours of the curtains and their fringe - the tints of crimson and gold - appear everywhere in profusion, and determine the _character _of the room. The carpet - of Saxony material - is quite half an inch thick, and is of the same crimson ground, relieved simply by the appearance of a gold cord (like that festooning the curtains) slightly relieved above the surface of the _ground, _and thrown upon it in such a manner as to form a succession of short irregular curves - one occasionally overlaying the other. The walls are prepared with a glossy paper of a silver gray tint, spotted with small Arabesque devices of a fainter hue of the prevalent crimson. Many paintings relieve the expanse of paper. These are chiefly landscapes of an imaginative cast-such as the fairy grottoes of Stanfield, or the lake of the Dismal Swamp of Chapman. There are, nevertheless, three or four female heads, of an ethereal beauty-portraits in the manner of Sully. The tone of each picture is warm, but dark. There are no "brilliant effects." _Repose _speaks in all. Not one is of small size. Diminutive paintings give that _spotty _look to a room, which is the blemish of so many a fine work of Art overtouched. The frames are broad but not deep, and richly carved, without being _dulled _or filagreed. They have the whole lustre of burnished gold. They lie flat on the walls, and do not hang off with cords. The designs themselves are often seen to better advantage in this latter position, but the general appearance of the chamber is injured. But one mirror - and this not a very large one - is visible. In shape it is nearly circular - and it is hung so that a reflection of the person can be obtained from it in none of the ordinary sitting-places of the room. Two large low sofas of rosewood and crimson silk, gold-flowered, form the only seats, with the exception of two light conversation chairs, also of rose-wood. There is a pianoforte (rose-wood, also), without cover, and thrown open. An octagonal table, formed altogether of the richest gold-threaded marble, is placed near one of the sofas. This is also without cover - the drapery of the curtains has been thought sufficient.. Four large and gorgeous Sevres vases, in which bloom a profusion of sweet and vivid flowers, occupy the slightly rounded angles of the room. A tall candelabrum, bearing a small antique lamp with highly perfumed oil, is standing near the head of my sleeping friend. Some light and graceful hanging shelves, with golden edges and crimson silk cords with gold tassels, sustain two or three hundred magnificently bound books. Beyond these things, there is no furniture, if we except an Argand lamp, with a plain crimson-tinted ground glass shade, which depends from He lofty vaulted ceiling by a single slender gold chain, and throws a tranquil but magical radiance over all.
-THE END- Edgar Allan Poe's essay: Philosophy of Furniture
Sunday, October 2, 2011
1.21 Giga whats?!!!
We were having a discussion on time travel. The thing is, can we really say that time is relative? Are we in a position to truly come to these conclusions? And what really is the conventional wisdom about time and it's correlation to physical elements (light, atoms, space, gravity). After all time is an intangible concept, an idea. The passage of which is not truly felt, but imagined. So good at imagining the passage of time we have become, because, we practice. Everyday we think about what amount of time has come to pass and the time that will pass from now to a future event. We're always asking what time it is. And we schedule everything according to a set time. I do not have to go into detail about how the earth rotates around the sun every 365 1/4 days and winter and summer and calanders and such. -Yes, these things, these physical changes (which happen on a definite routine set at regular intervals) have shaped our concept of time and helped us to set schedules and seasons and such.
So we imagine the passage of time because we are used to seeing these changes every day, every year. The argument I want to make however, is that just because these changes happen at a different rate in different spots of the universe doesn't mean that time can somehow be altered. Can one really move forward in time? That would mean violating the principles of cause and effect. I don't know... Just a thought... I could be totally wrong.
So we imagine the passage of time because we are used to seeing these changes every day, every year. The argument I want to make however, is that just because these changes happen at a different rate in different spots of the universe doesn't mean that time can somehow be altered. Can one really move forward in time? That would mean violating the principles of cause and effect. I don't know... Just a thought... I could be totally wrong.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
OH GREAT COFFEE!
On a particularly slow afternoon one Tuesday I was at work. I was going through my usual effort to convince coworkers and superiors that I was “hard at work” (filing, making copies, lowering my brow at the computer monitor, to pretend I’m looking at something other than facebook) when it began to rain.
Although the rain was short lived, it gave me an epiphany…Coffee…Indeed; I was a bloke slouching on a barstool behind the front desk of a small golf resort during the off season in one of the quietest places on earth – Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. I knew then, as the lobby traffic and phone calls slowed down to a supreme halt and then slipped off the face of the earth, that only a cup of this tremendous beverage, this colossal fusion of hot water and ground coffee beans, this this PERFECTION, was the one thing to get me through the second half of my shift. Consequently I called the kitchen and requested a Cup O Joe – black, of course. It was brought to me in a small to go cup with a lid on it.
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/archives/2009/Mar/
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/archives/2009/Mar/
As I bust off the lid like a kid scrambling through green slime on Double Dare, the warm aroma of fresh coffee filled my nostrils. I sobered at once, instantly feeling grounded, capable, knowledgeable, happy to be alive one more day. This distinctive brew brought to mind working mornings in concierge being up with the early meetings crowd. It recalled going to Conventions and Pikes Perk. It reminded me of friends, and how important they are. The significance of conversation with people who make conversation enjoyable over a warm cup of coffee or tea is one to tamper with.
So yes, let’s celebrate this beautiful luxury in human culture called coffee.Thursday, May 26, 2011
Neo Soul
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Information Super Highway
It has been said that we live in an age of instant gratification. That people want their information as soon as possible. And I believe in many particulars, this is true. We also have the technology that supports this societal behavior: cell phones with hundreds of internet aps, instant messaging, texting, e-mail, social networks, search engines, tivo, youtube, twitter, to name a few. We can get whatever we want, wherever we want and whenever we want. And yet I wonder if our "need for speed" has spawned these devices, or if we have become less patient as a result of them- A paradox!
But what if the situation in which the information is passed is changed? So many people, busy people, have said they don't like to read, they don't have time to read, this may be so but of course many do enjoy reading. You (reader) obviously like to read because you've made it this far down. If this had been a post or a comment on facebook, no one would read it. They'd say it's too long and move on. But the situation here is different now isn't it? This is a blog site, that in itself indicates a much different pace, a slower even relaxing mode is taken on. Even now I'm just sipping some coffee enjoying the morning as I write this. There is no need to reply quickly to anyone, or to update you on what I'm doing besides the coffee or after the coffee. Just a boring article to write.
I guess the point I want to make here is that, even though we live in a fast paced world with instant everything, there are many of us who enjoy just living, just being, and enjoying the finer things. We like to curl up on the couch and read a good book, knowing full well that it could take several hours, days or even weeks to finish.
The way that we analyze how and where information comes from can greatly affect whether or not we choose to receive it. This may not be a pandemic A.D.D. as much as our ability to distinguish between levels of importance or relevance. And it just may be that we are very good at filtering certain information out, we come across as antsy because our world is so full of ads and spam and what not we've become accustomed ... But sadly our need to "stay connected" seems to get in the way. I think it begins to overtake our lives and hinders our creative and abstract mind if we let it... Now I'm just starting to ramble.
But what if the situation in which the information is passed is changed? So many people, busy people, have said they don't like to read, they don't have time to read, this may be so but of course many do enjoy reading. You (reader) obviously like to read because you've made it this far down. If this had been a post or a comment on facebook, no one would read it. They'd say it's too long and move on. But the situation here is different now isn't it? This is a blog site, that in itself indicates a much different pace, a slower even relaxing mode is taken on. Even now I'm just sipping some coffee enjoying the morning as I write this. There is no need to reply quickly to anyone, or to update you on what I'm doing besides the coffee or after the coffee. Just a boring article to write.
I guess the point I want to make here is that, even though we live in a fast paced world with instant everything, there are many of us who enjoy just living, just being, and enjoying the finer things. We like to curl up on the couch and read a good book, knowing full well that it could take several hours, days or even weeks to finish.
The way that we analyze how and where information comes from can greatly affect whether or not we choose to receive it. This may not be a pandemic A.D.D. as much as our ability to distinguish between levels of importance or relevance. And it just may be that we are very good at filtering certain information out, we come across as antsy because our world is so full of ads and spam and what not we've become accustomed ... But sadly our need to "stay connected" seems to get in the way. I think it begins to overtake our lives and hinders our creative and abstract mind if we let it... Now I'm just starting to ramble.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
My Beautiful One
Seemingly talking, believing be gone
with it I want a change - I believe you
it's busy it's beauty beautiful one
I'm set to leave, I set sail, leave me
beautiful one seemingly in accord
it's not my way - how unthoughtful
I must have spoken must we speak it
my heart is broken, belongs to no one
what is left is just a token
talking be gone, I'm leaving with it
set the course unwanted change
beautiful one becomes a burden
something sought for something fought for
gone is present, past is talking
one direction set my course
long in distance, my beautiful one.
-Jason Compo
(originally written 10, June, 2007)
with it I want a change - I believe you
it's busy it's beauty beautiful one
I'm set to leave, I set sail, leave me
beautiful one seemingly in accord
it's not my way - how unthoughtful
I must have spoken must we speak it
my heart is broken, belongs to no one
what is left is just a token
talking be gone, I'm leaving with it
set the course unwanted change
beautiful one becomes a burden
something sought for something fought for
gone is present, past is talking
one direction set my course
long in distance, my beautiful one.
-Jason Compo
(originally written 10, June, 2007)
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Wide Of The Mark
Sunshine in her eyes
'til things went awry
wherein I realize
some of these are lies
nothing short of shameful
Ask me what that means
you said you'd like to get the meaning
it happened in my sleep
occurred while I was dreaming
Who it doesn't matter now
'cause when was long ago
and what seems unimportant now
since why we'll never know
I approach the dark
the wide of the mark
it's where she left me
I'd love to say goodbye
I couldn't say goodbye
she never let me
Who it doesn't matter now
cause when was long ago
and what seems unimportant now
since why we'll never know
Part of me believes
it was more than just disease
it's why I feel haunted
and even though she tried
to live until she died
it's what she really wanted
Who it doesn't matter now
cause when was long ago
and what seems unimportant now
since why we'll never know
-Jason Compo
January 15, 2011
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