A Queer Mobile

Discussing the Good Society

I've been meaning to blog about a challenge I received from my good friend Betty Kasson in a Christmas letter she and Jim sent this last year. (I had the extreme pleasure to work for Jim while I was at ROLM in the '80s. I met Jim's wife Betty and the three of us became lasting friends.) I can't say it better than she can, so here goes:

Here is a thought for your consideration this year. Jim and I went to a dinner party given by some nice people we don't know very well. During dinner, a political issue came up, and everyone at the table froze with that deer-in-the-headlights look people now get when they are not sure they are in the presence of shared political views. After an uncomfortable silence, someone brought up another topic and the conversation continued in a non-political vein. I went home distressed by the experience. If intelligent people of good will can't discuss these issues, something is wrong. We are living in a time when extreme positions have become the norm, and moderate stances are condemned as wishy-washy. How do we create common ground so we can talk about the important issues of our time? Let me make a modest proposal. Let's start a grassroots campaign to discuss the 'good society'. I invite you to sit down with people you value and ask them, 'What do you see as the important components of a good society?' Let's envision and articulate the world we want our children and grandchildren to live in. I don't think we're as far apart as we are led to believe. We are the people who can create this reality. I'm not ready to let someone else do it for me and my family, and I bet you aren't either.

I believe that we believe we're far apart from others politically because it's in the interest of news media to  convey that: the media gets more viewers when there's something 'hot' to talk about. So I agree with Betty that I think we're much closer to each other's views than we might think we are. I do know that a couple of queer guys living in Iowa - John and I - can become friends with neighbors who are very different politically.

Now I've not yet held a dinner featuring Betty's idea, but I plan to. I'll report back with what happens. And I encourage you to reach out and talk to other people of good will. I actually believe that social change doesn't begin at the political and policy level; it begins at the personal level, the grassroots level. That means you and me.

Spinach tortellini soup

Here's my first effort on YouTube - a video of a wonderfully quick soup you can make in under twenty minutes.

Could you have imagined this 20 years ago?

I'm working through a super book on managing creative projects when the author asked a question that brought me up short: Could you have imagined where you are twenty years ago? (The question is about doing top-down planning and how limiting it can be.)

My trusty journal came right out. (I drew this branch of my Abutilon growing next to my rocking chair as the snow fell outside while writing.)

Absolutely not! Twenty years ago I was getting ready for my sabbatical. I was still with my former lover and just starting to wrestle with wanting to be free. Yet, I knew what I wanted and needed. I wasn't brave enough to do it yet.

Along the way I created my own business - and lost it again. I gave up my house, my piano, and then regenerated them in much better form than what I'd given up. And finally I learned the knowledge - and wisdom - of the heart. Ten years ago next month I moved here, first to learn and to be frustrated, and then to manifest my heart's desire.

How odd to say that I've manifested it. How odd to say I still want what I've got.

So the cycle seems to be: Loss - Spiritualization - Manifestation. It's the old alchemical process. Might it be the same - finally - with creating my own vision for work?

Getting a creative license

John and I hit Barnes & Noble the other evening. I can never find John when he's wandering the aisles, so I meandered over to a table and found this treasure. (Finding the unexpected is one reason why shopping online for books just can't replace a well-stocked bookstore.)

Gregory illustrates this gorgeous book with images from his own journal. Now I tried drawing years ago when I got a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - and I got pretty happy with what I was doing. But I lost it, and never got back to drawing again. I journal every day anyway, so I bought a nice set of colored pencils and I'm doing my own little experiments. I may illustrate a few posts with my drawings.

Analog In, Digital Out

This is a cool book! I blew through it right around the first of the year, and I'm still thinking about it. I transcribed my notes this afternoon. I can't represent the visual energy and Dawes's enthusiasm in my notes or in this post. But here's an idea: create a PlayDoh-based interface - like Dawes did - to control a computer system. How? He built simple video processing code on top of open source libraries, and used a video camera on his laptop to monitor how he manipulated the clay. As the clay changed shapes, the computer did things. Now think about how you might build something really new...

Two quotes I've filed:

Anything can happen in the next half hour. (Something for me to remember in the middle of soul-sucking strategic planning meetings about things that might never happen. Just go make something...)

How can you have a beautiful ending without making beautiful mistakes?

Bread machine!

It was a bad news/good news visit. One of our favorite discounters closed up shop here in Cedar Rapids. They were a treasure because they had excellent brands (read: Kitchen-
Aid, Silpat,...) always at discount prices. John and I headed out to see what their closeout sale might bring us. I bought a Zojurushi rice cooker. Their rice cookers and bread machines are legendary, so I wasn't surprised when I turned out absolutely the finest rice I've ever prepared the first time I used the machine.

Based on that experience, I wanted to try the Zojirushi bread machine, too. The King Arthur folks are effusive in their praise about this machine, and I trust their input. I got a great holiday deal from the King Arthur folks on the machine, and I've been loving it ever since.

John's Anadama bread recipe is my absolutely favorite bread for sandwiches and for toasting. I whipped up a batch this evening to a superb conclusion. See the results I got - a full size gorgeous loaf with excellent crust and crumb. I cut John's basic recipe in half. If you have a bread machine, try this one:

Assemble the loaf pan and kneading paddles. Add

1/2 c milk (nonfat is fine)
1/2 c + 2 Tbsp water
2 1/2 Tbsp butter, melted
1/6 c honey
1/6 c molasses (tip: take a 1/3 c measure and fill it roughly half full of honey, and top it off with molasses)
2 1/2 c unbleached flour (I use King Arthur all purpose unbleached flour, NOT bread flour)
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c + 2 Tbsp cornmeal
2 tsp active dry yeast (I use bread machine yeast)

Kick off the machine on a normal bread cycle. The Zo has an extended normal cycle - about 3.5 hours - that produces simply wonderful results.

Wrapping up 2006

I always re-read my journal entries from the previous year to get a sense of the flow of the year that separated the writing. More than discovering that we were shoveling snow a year ago, what I learned made me very happy with how 2006 developed.

• At the end of 2005 I was finishing up what I thought was my final draft of twenty-two images that I'd designed and executed completely using photorealistic 3D-rendering techniques. The image subject? My own Tarot deck, one that I call The Dimensional Tarot. In 2006 totally new software became available. I wrestled terribly with it mid-year. When I got things back under control I realized that I needed to completely re-envision the 2005 work. I'm well along with that work now, and I've had the benefit of my friend Diane Kaye's expert photographic and compositional input. I'm so pleased at how this work has evolved and deepened.
• On the imaging front, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art graciously accepted one of my images for their exhibition Cedar Rapids: Day into Night. It's the first time I've had a photographic print shown in a museum, and I was thrilled with the opportunity.
• I'm still very much changing in the professional work that I do. My term in my current job was to have ended yesterday. While I told my employer that I didn't want to renew my commitment, the staff negotiated with me to continue for one more year - with the provision that I'll do less travel than I've done so far. It's incredible to me that in March 2007 I'll have been telecommuting for a California company for ten years - and for most of that time traveling across the country once a month.  What happens next? I want to work for myself again. I have a good idea for websites to support artists - coming from having seen what John and his colleagues put up with to get their work out on the web. Hopefully I can begin to develop that idea in 2007!
• My post on the Lifehacker book points to my renewed interest in sustaining a plan for the year. In previous years I've used software from Franklin-Covey to help me develop an overall plan for my time. I've let that slide - mostly because I'm now doing all my work on a Mac, and the Franklin-Covey software won't run there. So I've devised a new approach. I do lots of mind-mapping - creating maps of concepts that I want to explore. I've built a map of my goals for 2007, and I'll work to track how well I work toward those goals.
• John moved his shop to some great commercial space not more than ten blocks from he house. (He's been walking there since the weather's been so nice during December.) He's been productive there from the very beginning, and he's already sold lots of work  that he's built in that space. What's exciting for us is that his old shop will morph this year into our new library/exercise facility. Once we're done cleaning up the space and refurbishing it, we'll almost double our current living space. I'm so excited about this I can barely stand it! I'll get some room to set up a proper photographic studio, too.

So a great 2007 to everyone who reads this! I hope you've formulated your plans and are ready to get into the thick of making new dreams into reality.

Science and Art

We spent a lot of money this year on books published by Taschen. John surprised me with this glorious book of full color prints of drawings made by naturalists in the mid-1700s. In those days to be a scientist meant you were also an artist; there were no photographic processes to permit recording images directly. These astonishing drawings capture the wonder of the natural world in a way that photographs often do not.

The Eiffel Tower...big!

Hemispheres, the in-flight magazine on United flights, had an article on this sumptuous book that Taschen just published. It's huge - and has full-size reproductions of the drawings that Gustave Eiffel had bound and sold around the time the Eiffel Tower opened. So I got it for John for Christmas. He was entranced - and it's an amazing book. (Caution: it won't fit on your shelves...)

Dirt dog for John

I figured I needed to get John something to help with his wonderful new shop, so I ordered a Dirt Dog workshop sweeping robot from iRobot. That's the same company that makes the Roomba vacuuming robot. The Dirt Dog uses two counter-rotating brushes rather than a vacuum to pick up small stuff on shop floors.

I was surprised with how John was taken with it. It's been very effective in the new space. He sets it off when he leaves for the day. The following morning he empties the dust bin and plugs it in to recharge.