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Example of Artistic Creativity

Let's ignore Tolstoy's (and my) disagreement with how the word, "Art," is typically used; that is, let's pretend that "Art" really does mean "pretty stuff" made by the human hand and imagination. Still, I could go to dozens of art festivals per year, as I travel, and find little that actually inspires me. And yet we saw it today. Maybe it wasn't so much pretty as creative and ironic. We were mountain biking near the edge of town, where people used to dump debris of the usual kind. The good news is that most of this dumping happened a long time ago, as evinced by the extreme rustiness of the cans, wires, and buckets. Trail builders or users had gathered up this rusty debris and decorated juniper trees along the trail. At one point somebody had built a "maze" out of a hundred cans. I started to look forward to the next 'sculpture' of rusty debris. I was tickled by some people's ability to turn lemons into lemonade. Anti

Gratitude to a Milieu

A friend and I have talked about how lucky we were to be born in Western Europe or America in the first 15 years after World War II. We thought we had it as good as people are ever going to get it. That thought hit me again as I read Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror," about the calamitous 1300s.  Eyeglasses had been in use since [1300 A.D.] , allowing old people to read more in their later years and greatly extending the scholar's life of study. Those words might sound mild but they hit me with great force. After all I read her words on an eReader. What a huge improvement they are, especially for older eyes! But won't people born a generation later than me have even better eReaders? Oh sure, they probably will. But how many books will be censored -- directly or indirectly -- by then? We mustn't be so naive as to think that freedom of expression is a natural condition nor that, just because it has existed from time to time, that it is bound to be permanent.

Camping and Language

Every activity seems to sprout its own jargon, as every lawn or garden sprouts weeds. Oddly enough, camping doesn't seem jargon-intensive. In fact the only jargon that comes to mind is 'boondocking', a term I dislike and seldom use. There might be more jargon that is obvious to an outsider, but not to an insider. I finished out the night by listening to the "History of English" podcast again, and found the episode on the woolen cloth industry in medieval England so interesting that I had to get out of bed and start this post. from pakissan.com In particular, Kevin Stroud went through the cloth-making industry in the order of its major processing steps, and mentioned the new English surnames or words that were associated with that step: Spinner, Weaver, Webster, Fuller, Walker, and spinster, napkin, apron, blanket, and mannequin. Perhaps this episode was especially fun for me because, as a camper, I have 'slept with the sheepies' on BLM land, seen warning

Trouble in Autumn's Paradise

It is so easy to praise September and October as months of paradise, and for the most part, it is true. Ahh but there is trouble in paradise: this is the time of year I want to go to sleep at 730 pm.  I knew somebody once who used the 'natural' argument: that you should go to bed when it gets dark, regardless of what "o'clock" it is. He was wrong. Going to bed too early destroys your sleep patterns, and sleep is just too important to play games with.  So what is a camper to do? This is one of those conundrums that will only lend itself to partial solutions. As usual, a person pines for a giant or perfect solution instead of a combination of smaller solutions. 1. Run more lights at night. 2. Blink more frequently. 3. Avoid reading books. Only do easy things with the eyes. Write rather than read. 4. Permit yourself just about any activity as long as you are conscious. 5. Shift your evening entertainment to the ears. 6. Do household chores. Get set up for tomorrow so

Back With the Wagon Train in Wyoming

I am migrating south through the southwestern corner of Wyoming right now, but not quite at the same spot as in July, when I was heading north.  Then, it was the famous South Pass. This time it is Ft. Bridger. This must bring a smile to the face of anyone who is a fan of the classic TV western, "Wagon Train."  Just think how many tourists have been disappointed -- and probably appalled -- by southern Wyoming! They hear the word "Wyoming" and immediately think of the front cover of a National Geographic magazine, the Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole, "Jellystone Park" and Yogi Bear, and maybe even the movie "Shane" and its opening shot and musical score by Victor Young, or the fictitious "Medicine Bow" of the classic TV western "The Virginian." Then they look out the windows of their car and see brown, treeless, hills and plains. It is about as bleak as anywhere in the West, bitterly cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and windy