I've been working on some of the design ideas I have for expansion of this site and others, working on some graphics, and just generally getting all McLuhany. When the visual side of me gets going, my verbal motors spool way down to idle, which is easy for them to do in an environment where I don't do much talking with folks who are older than seven. But the ideas and logic in the realm of imagery can have a momentum in them unseen in the world of words, and it's much easier for me to lose track of time when I'm immersed in pictures. Working in the darkroom comes to mind. The non-linear subconscious really fires up, and things happen in flashes rather than verbally syntactical equations. Pattern recognition and spatial relationships can be deeply penetrating emotionally, and can snap a brain into understanding something in a way that is neither available in words, nor measurable for its utility. There is something inherently subjective about responses to photographs, and it's this risk, this gamble on emotional understanding, that makes good photographs or paintings or any other non-verbal pieces so potent. A special relationship happens between the creator and the viewers, partly because when viewers "click" with a picture it happens in spite of the fact that it has not been explained to them, whereas the very nature of the usual forms of verbal delivery is essentially one of having it explained. But looking for and finding that hint, that first inkling of elements lurking in an image which, when improved or enlarged or juxtaposed can cause a synthesis among previously unconnected contexts, well, scoop me out and call me punkin', that's when I become a happy boy. So I've been kind of quiet lately, partly out of choice, and partly because after all these pichers I get to feelin' kinda stoopid when it comes to using words right. They just don't seem to be there sometimes. Sentences go half finished. I stare more. * * * * * * * The other part of why I'm not writing here as much as I'd like to involves Amy getting the Barbie Riding Club® computer game for Christmas. After all these years of trying to convey the concept of sharing, she's gone and used it against me, the little slyboots, knocking so sweetly on my office door, and telling me that she really really really needs the computer so she can ride Buttercup now. "She needs her sugar cubes and carrots, Dad." "Screw Buttercup and the cd-rom she rode in on." I snarl. But it comes out sounding like "Okay. Sure. Come on in." She walks in and plops down in my chair to go galloping past waterfalls and rainbows while I mutter about laptops and how wide the gulf seems between willingness and funding. I look to the future in hopes of seeing a 15" XGA Active Matrix TFT color screen. But there are obstacles. Luckily, Barbie is teaching me how to jump over them. |
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| today's music: "Twist Barbie" -- Shonen Knife -- LET'S KNIFE today's wisdom: "You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tell you more about that one than words can." -Henry David Thoreau |
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