Looking Up In Kansas - Where is Google Map? Can You See Their Big Eye in the Sky?

I have been playing with the apps on Facebook – the cities I’ve visited – It wants me write a review and make a recommendation – mark the cities that I might visit – Facebook wants you to comment, recommend, and rank – share my travel photos - tell others where they should go – well go to hell! why don’t you? I like Google map better. Walter went and stood at the spots were Google Map as loaded on the Mac and on the PC both pointed if you drilled straight down – someplace in Topeka and in front of hotel in Lawrence both in Kansas. Why there? you ask. It seems that the developer was from Lawrence and the one who adapted the program for the Mac did it in Topeka. And when he arrived he looked up and said he saw nothing unusual (I forgot to ask whether it was cloudy or not) – and how would one know if one had not – but was it worth a trip all the way from San Francisco? I like Google Map better than Cities I’ve Visited and it doesn’t constantly prompt me to share – Facebook is so damn promiscuous. It says I have pined 123 cities in 22 countries – I could do a lot more – but then I’d have a wall-to-wall carpet of tacks across the map. Look up and see if you can see the big eye in the sky! And as of yet on Facebook I’ve still done nothing significant other than to lurk. The more friends you have the better you can lurk.

His was a battlefield without glory, a battlefield where none could display deeds of valor: it was the frontline of the spirit – Yukio Mishima – Patriotism, 1966 p.26

Mother and son
Father and daughter
Sister and brother
       Every mother’s son
       My brother’s keeper

Husband and wife
Father and mother
       Two peas in a pod
       Growing like weeds
Man and woman
       One’s significant other
       Lawfully wedded
His sister; her brother
The children – a boy and
       A girl
Our nuclear family
Two generations happily
       Co-habitating
Like mother, like daughter
A man and his son
       Carry on the name
The couple and their
       Offspring
From cradle to grave

Today, there is more realization of problems than there is faith in solutions – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p291

Bedroom Community


Big black Ford SUV
       And a lot of debt
She had her fancy
      Wedding years ago
      Cost her parents plenty

Adjusting her seat restraint
      As she pulls away
With Federal funding
      The local police
      Are vigilant
Looking for terrorists and
      Unbridled housewives
She must watch out
      For herself
I watch her depart
Filling in her back story
      As much of it as I know
      And a few additional details
To make her seem exotic
I watch her drive away
I did not ask about the kids
      It seemed inappropriate
Nothing unusual happened
      Today

The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell – Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy, 1990 p3

Health Care – things don’t
       Work as they promised
Oh but it does – it all works
You’ve been listening to lies
There is no global warming
And healthcare doesn’t need
       Any expensive fix
Obama is working on a new
       Set of metrics
We can all sleep tonight

In the good mystery there is nothing wasted, no sentence, no word that is not significant. And even if it is not significant, it has the potential to be so – which amounts to the same thing – Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy, 1990 p9

Illinois Route 1 – The Dixie Highway – Chicago, Riverdale, Harvey, Homewood, Glenwood and on – Grant Park, Danville, Mount Carmel and Hole-In-The-Rock – take a ferry across to Kentucky – Crossing US 30 – The Lincoln Highway – known as the “Crossroads of the Nation” as important as the Burlington crossin the Santa Fe outside Galesburg.

I’ve started cataloging rules (written and unwritten). I started with doing the laundry. I came up with 14 rules. It was my second list of rules

Language is the most massive and inclusive art that we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations - Edward Sapir

Berkeley - I’m at Raleigh’s American Pub and Grill sipping on a Black Mountain Porter. The SFB has sold out of its Grippman’s and is now serving Alcatraz Stout. What exactly is the difference between porter and stout? I ask. The bartender says that one is a porter and the other is a stout. “Do all stouts contain oatmeal” I ask. He gives a negative reply. “Do any porters contain oatmeal?” Again he replies in the negative. “So” I say “If it has oatmeal it is definitely a stout, but if it does not it is definitely not a porter but may still be a stout, Is that right? And he replies yes. So what is the definitive test how can you tell which is which? He says that the stout has a darker color and a higher alcohol content. “Is that always true” I ask. He thinks a moment and replies “No” “So” I say “porters and stouts sort merge into each other without a clear border”. The bartender is not sure. “So in the end, the only way I can tell which is which” I ask “is by the name that the brewmeister has given it? If it is called a stout it is a stout and if it is called a porter it is a porter” I finally get an affirmative reply.

I compile another list on how to hang out. My third list – this is getting obsessive.

There are moments when the past has a force so strong it seems one might be annihilated by it – John Banville – The Sea p35

Then I go to a show called “Access People” its about placing tracking devices in public spaces that control spot lights and project voices at people trigger them – sort of security devices for the art minded

It’s an art project by Marie Sester.  So far she has only put the installations in semi-private areas where the subjects mostly understood that they were involved in an artistic event. She said that she would like to have an installation in a real public space, progressing to interactions with public icons projected onto walls. The icons would talk directly with the target. So who is the audience - the target, the web viewer picking the target, web viewers watching the action, mass media audiences, the artist setting up the installation, funders developing new surveillance tools for the military/media complex. I noted that she used the phrase ‘military entertainment complex’ while all the questioners transposed it into the more familiar phrase ‘military industrial complex’. Is it the same metaphor. Voyeurs versus snipers – will the target be amused, entertained, intimidated, annoyed – or dead. Should surveillance be democratized or should it stay an elitist activity for member of the police state?

Sesler was an Eyebeam intern and a Creative Capital recipient

From Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame to Sesler’s fifteen second of spotlight. And it was Warhol’s money after all that had funded ‘Access’ through “Creative Capital”

You can’t hate something so violently unless a part of you also loves it – Paul Auster – City of Ghosts p117