results so far

When I got the scanner last week my first thought was to look at the old 35mm slides so I'd have a permanent computer record. Years ago there were no automatic photo systems that would adjust focus and light levels so what might look perfectly fine through the lens as you adjusted the setting could easily result in a fuzzy picture of your subject. This wasn't so bad with photos of people and places but ruinous to artwork. Maybe I needed new glasses. Anyway, I did get a few including this one which looks okay so long as its not enlarged. Painted in 1984, the girl in the grass appears to have rickets and I wonder why I didn't correct that thigh bone while I was drawing. Did I do it on purpose? If so, I can't remember the point and I hope the person who owns it now doesn't cringe at the thought of her standing up.

Another from the same time period is this one with, once again, the theme being running. Little do we usually know it but I've learned the faster we run from one thing the quicker we'll get to the next - ready or not. What I remember really being interested in was the idea of riding an ostrich and this was the only way I could envision anyone doing so.



















I ran across an interesting analogy recently regarding atheism that simply asks you to imagine the kitchen appliances arguing about the existence of electricity. If the power goes off the discussion is over. I rarely buy the Shambala Sun magazine since there are too many reminders of how fashionable Buddhism has become in the west. The very idea of having my own perfect meditation supplies or altar with a plastic Buddha (or worse, one that was stolen from Tibet and sold by the Chinese) feels repugnant to me. Yet I do meditate and have been a long-time customer at the smorgasbord of spirituality.

Anyway, I bought the Jan issue and there was a very interesting discussion article called 'Mind, Matter and God' by Barry Boyce whose main point is that popular atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris have all fallen into a linguistic trap by taking on the fundamentalist elements of theistic religions and then allowing them to define the argument. Equating Pat Robertson with a Zen master is obviously going to result in a lot of confusion. Did Moses really part the Red Sea? Well, duh.. A more temperate approach is to have respect for and practice, if anyone so desires, the more contemplative aspects of whatever tradition suits us. I wanted to link to the article but since the magazine is still on the stands it's not available yet but I thought it interesting enough to mention.

Keep smiling and you'll look like :-) me.