Intuition tells me the best annotation for this page is none at all.
Swam Flew Over On
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Monthly Archives: April 2013
EVERY Water WHERE
Here are the words to the triple acrostic:
Eco-logic tells us we owe Life to melt & flow
Vessels for libations are best fill’d with aitch-two-oh
Each & every droplet put in free fall is a sphere
Raise the temp to have a steamy scene with one held dear
Yet when iced it turns a thirst to Gratitude sincere
And above all that, and below “Snow cone” and “Fog bound” and “Rain man” and “Cloud Nine” and “Hail bop” and “Ice scream,” in tiny letters, I wrote “NOT PICTURED: AL SLEET, THE HIPPY DIPPY WEATHERMAN.” This is, of course, a tip of the hat to the late, great, lamented GEORGE CARLIN, whose spaced-out meteorologist once caused Johnny Carson to nearly laugh himself out of his chair. That clip is easily findable on YouTube, and if you haven’t seen it, and need a good belly laugh, please check it out!
Thesaurus Rex
Yesterday was as bouncearound as a pinball machine. It was my daughter’s birthday, so Denise and I left Sedona before 7am, joining daughter Kate; her mother, my former wife Joni; my mother; and her husband, my stepfather Marty, for a 9am breakfast at Coco’s in central Phoenix. Denise and I went straight from breakfast back to Sedona, I caught an hour’s sleep, then I worked a five-hour shift at the Village Gallery, where dwell certain ceramica of mine. Home by seven-thirty p.m., quick dinner crafted by Denise, viewing an episode of CRACKER, which stars Robbie Coltrane, known the world over as Hagrid of the Harry Potter series, another hour’s sleep, than off to my nighttime day job, working 11pm to 7am. Somehow before I left for work I did this page.
Here are the words to the acrostic:
The right words can make a career
Hold demons at bay with no fear
Empower; ennoble, help steer
Some phrases turn jelly to stone
Assist an ascension; enthrone
Usurp human will unto drone
Remonstrances may cure the lax
Upenders oft thrill to the max
Still–ACTION lets hearts and moons wax
As Mark Twain says, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.” ‘Nuff said!
Math Thematics
From top to bottom, and left to right:
First there is a sandwich. “Home is where the Cardioid is” is the bread, and that heart-shaped function dubbed the Cardioid is the meat. Then is the classic, simple equation f=ma: Force equals Mass times Acceleration. To its immediate right is the example of a gun firing a bullet. When a bullet is stopped, it accelerates its mass of lead from, say, 1000 ft/sec to 0 ft/sec in very little time–a forceful wallop indeed.
Next is the Math Thematics acrostic:
Mapping reality calls 4 sum thought
Minds hear the challenge [congruent-] equals flame 4 a moth
Antwerp, Armenia, Cannes, Chillicothe
Tackrooms & classrms & Batcaves by Gotham
Teach us Utopia–give us Golgotha
Here be the dragons of all & of naught
Here asymptotes may be deadly as Gotti
Half-solved equations turn sum cyanotic
Heroes’ resolve gives us answers by lots
Under the first acrostic is a gap described (and, ironically, filled) [discontinuity]. One example of a discontinuity is when the curve of a graph shoots upward to infinity and then an infinitesimal smidge to the right comes up from the depths of negative infinity.
Under the ungap is a Mathematical quadruple acrostic:
Menthol-vaporic
Arrangements–a
Testimonial thrill
Menthol-Vaporic doesn’t quite rhyme with Euphoric, so it becomes the best phrase I can come up with to describe the frustrating ecstasy Mathematical matters have provided me over the years.
To the acrostic’s right is a graphicrepresentation of the square root of minus one, also known as i. To its right is a pirate intoning “i, lad!”
Under the second acrostic is an imagined bumper sticker that reads “Σ: That sums it up.” Σ, the Greek alphabet letter known as Sigma, is the mathematical symbol for summation.
To the bumper sticker’s right (and the pirate’s left) is an equation which reads Infinity divided by Zero does not equal Anything. And, indeed, Anything, including Zero AND Infinity, divided by Zero is what the mathematics realm deems Undefined. However, I vaguely recall from second-semester Calculus taken about thirty-six years ago that there’s something called L’Hôpital’s Rule which allows us to skate around such obstacles in special cases. (Interested parties may do a search on YouTube; I just discovered, in obtaining via search the proper circumflex-and-all spelling of “L’Hôpital,” that there’s an introductory video in YouTubeVille.)
Under the equation is the final, fudgy triple acrostic “Math Them At[t]ics”:
Millennia dictate melancholia
As a threshold means an entrant
The quad takes the quadratic
Humanity’s limits are curves
Finally, at bottom is my signature and date.
I leave meaning-derivation as an exercise for the student. Good luck with that, Friend!
Fractionalizing Functional Pottery
This little piggie is glazed with Coleman Red-Orange.
This little piggie stays home: I’m not going to display it for sale at the Village Gallery, where my stuff hangs out. It’s got Cobalt Turquoise and White Liner going for it, and I can’t wait to put some Cottonwood flowers in it after Denise and I move there.
This little piggie went wrong, or not: Coleman Red-Orange again, and Cobalt Turquoise, but the Red-Orange morphed to a sort of red iron oxide just below the rim. But the ribbing was consequently better defined with that thinness. Still, I wish I’d kept the vessel inverted/immersed longer in the glaze.
This little piggie DID go to market; after being rejected by the Yavapai College Juried Art Show, I gave it shelf space at the Village Gallery, and a $35.00 price tag. Within 24 hours it was purchased by the spouse of one of my fellow artists–and there was a thank-you note in the cash envelope! Moral: Rejection need not be Forever.
And this little piggie is going Wee Wee Wee all the way to the Valley of the Sun. It was commissioned by, and made especially for, stellar Valley poet Bill Campana. I’ve upended it to reveal the signature/date format I use. Feb 6 on top, 2013 on bottom, and my signature in the middle, with the O of Bowers coinciding with the center. Atypically, since this is a commissioned work, I’ve added “Made exclusively” (below Feb 6) and “for bill campana” (above 2013. Bill texts almost entirely in lowercase, including his name) to the foot inscription. (The bottom of a functional ceramic vessel is called the Foot. Other body parts, like Lip and Belly, come into play as well when a vessel is described.)
It has been too long since my “One with Clay” featured clay. Feels good!
Roger Ebert, A to Z, RIP
From A, Awake in the Dark, his wonderful collection of film essays, to Z, Z-Man, the unforgettable character in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which screenplay Roger co-wrote with the equally unforgettable Russ Meyer–Roger Ebert lived an exemplary life. Much of that is thanks to C for Chaz, his other half. Yesterday Chaz described his passing as a Transition. Roger, I so hope it suits you. Farewell!
Gandhi Clones
The reproducible human being has been in the literature at least since Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, which was written in 1931. Most of the humans in his imagined future were not born, but decanted from a vessel whose chemical mix and hospitability depended on the caste of its embryo. The lower caste zygotes were subjected to “Bokanovsky’s Process” which cause the fertilized egg to take twinning up to as much as 96-fold.
Much later there was a richly imagined story by James Tiptree, Jr. (the nom de plume of Alice Sheldon, who kept her gender a secret from the science-fiction community and fooled even Isaac Asimov, who corresponded with “him” and referred to “him” as Tip), entitled “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” This was a future without men, and very few distinct women, who had to repopulate the Earth with their clones. Then three guys from three hundred years ago, time-warp slingshotted by the Sun, show up…
I’ve had a brief go at a clone story. The one new thing I was bringing to the party was the notion that if extensive human cloning was taking place, there would be a process called Twisting that would afford every clone something absolutely unique to her- or himself. The clone would then choose a unique name. I imagined, among other things, a Gary, Indiana populated entirely by Garys, who would jet off to wild weekends in Helena, Montana, poplated entirely by Helenas…
I have a feeling that DNA preservation is going to be big in coming decades; and, legal or not, high-profile folks (such as Mohandas K. Gandhi) might, willingly or not, be cloned, perhaps over and over again. Thus a semi-doodle of a person in lotus position bloomed into this weird Cirque du Soleil of cloned Gandhis.
Here are the words:
GreatSoul–Bapu–some roots vedic
All recordings are not vinyl
New-found tech from Chi to Vilno
Darkest dreams of Saint & Villain
Here we walk a gene-pooled vale
In our quest; seek verities
Would a cadre of Gandhis be helpful in saving civilization? I can ask that question, but I’m not arrogant enough to think I can answer it.
Suda: Intellectual
I have known Jack Suda since early grade school. He was the first Asian person I ever saw, live; and my unknowing kid-brain thought there was something terribly wrong with him, just as it thought the air had been let out of my ninety-year-old great-grandmother’s breasts the first time I saw her. But back to Jack. He was a raconteur before his teens, which seems impossible; he could talk about the most pedestrian thing and infuse it with storytelling magic. Several times I had the privilege of sitting in the afternoon at Glendale High School, waiting for the late bus to come, listening spellbound to Jack spin the tapestry of recent days. And all I can clearly remember of all that talk, forty years later, is the phrase “Coke bottle.”
The photo source of this page is from shots taken at a mini-high-school-reunion a couple of weeks ago. Since we last saw each other Jack has been a bodybuilder and a resort-level chef. His vitality, and his face a little, reminds me of Keye Luke in the classic TV series KUNG FU.
ProTesTer (Lost Cause Roster)
This is not a page decrying Protest, but a particular category of Protester. Genuine Protest–as practiced by Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, and other fine folks who put themselves at risk for a greater good–makes the world go round. But the “protester” who wouldn’t have anything to show John Lennon when he sings “We’d all love to see the plan”–stop wasting your time and ours, is my advice.
The other side of Protest’s coin is Advocacy. It’s fine to Naysay, IF you can Yeasay as well.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get down from my ivory soapbox–and Actually Do Something. Thanks for listening!
Goodby: AFD Extra
It has been fun and frenzied, Friends. But today I decided that enough was enough, and that the one-time-a-day posting would end today. Hail, Farewell, and Goodby to that.
(NOT April Fool! in the traditional sense. I ended the one-time-a-day posting by posting TWICE, for the first time, today. Ain’t I a Stinker.)
One with Clay, Image and Text 