the 3rd dimension

i remember when i first moved to the city i was blown away at how flat it was. it just goes on and on, like a crusting lichen. i think, however, that most of that impression comes from the face that the city is predominately a 2D space. we move on the plane and only rarely are able to break the surface tension and venture upwards or downwards and if we do it is at great cost of machinery, ropes, engines, that take us to very specific destinations. the 3rd dimension in cities is ruled by design. now imagine if we could move upwards along surfaces with the same ease as we can move horizontally down the sidewalk. imagine the incredible dimensions that would open up in the urban surface, the security implications alone are staggering not to mention entire new tracts of space for vendors, graffiti artists, homeless people, signature gatherers, advertisers, and gardeners. well... this reality is very close. a team of researchers in italy have just published technical plans for building a "spiderman suit" utilizing a system of branching nanotubes to duplicate the adhesive vanDerWahl forces found in the extraordinary sticky feet of the gecko. such branching nanotubes have already been made, and indeed can be made easily. thus... only a few years until we see a suit covered with these tubes that can literally stick us to any surface, wall or ceiling. next we can affix temporary shelters, hammocks, tents, nanotube nets, to freeway pylons, bridge supports, skyscraper facades, and really start using all this space.

sense of normalcy

second day into it. saw the eclipse last night, you used to be able to rule a whole empire with an eclipse. the immediate and vast capacity of specialized knowledge to impart priesthood. now nobody even notices. i was reading about light pollution and apparently there are not a single place left in the world where there is historical darkness, nowhere. all those twinklers gone until we turn off all the lights. imagine a global blackout and the sudden burst of stars we would see. we need darkness, security lighting is a farce, we're unhealthy because of the street lights, i plan on investing in a set of thick curtains stat. what a knife blade we walk, trying to get to our dream-self. so many tiny distractions that can shunt us off into something we never expected to get caught in. species in overdrive, no time to lose what's not useful, no time for our genes to adapt. bumble on!

lithops, light, and land-folks

have spent a few scattered days here, trying to develop some sort of routine to keep my mind and body occupied. i forget how much time school leaves free, especially this fuzzy limbo before classes commence properly. the room is now set up, or at least the important bits. behold the new digs.

getting used to living with strangers is definitely a shift in the old social transmission, but i'm doing my best to avoid annoying them right off the bat. we'll see.

as it turns out there's a xeric plant shop right up the street from my house which sells all sorts of amazing little cacti, succulents, and LITHOPS! here's the new one i picked up (lesliei albinica) along with three aloe vera plants that someday i hope to expand into a full fledged aloe vera farm and produce only the richest, freshest, most select aloe vera juice there is. aloe will cure what ails you!

in other news my landscape architecture departmental orientation was today. i got to meet all of my professors and all 13 of my cohorts in the 3 year MLA program. the professors are all a crack up. ranging from 'chip' sullivan who appeared grumbling in the corner, wearing a faded military jacket and black beret scribbling madly with a fountain pen and who is producing the first ever graphic history of landscape architecture in comic book format... to Dr. Bosselmann, a severely, sharply disheveled older gentlemen with an impressively vague European accent who travels throughout the world discoursing with academic ambivalence about all the "-bilities"... liva, walka, memora, etc.

my fellow students and i were all nervous as could be, but everyone got along nicely and we found those small world connections that make new acquaintances feel like an extension of our old life-web. i think we all recognize that chance has put us together and now we're to spend the next three year working closely together... so may as well make the best of it. politics will undoubtedly come into play sooner or later and who wants the crummy studio desk?

ooo... the fog is rolling in over the east hills. wild redwood canyons up there full of ferns and waterfalls. scrubby mediterranean plain down here; jade hedges, aloe trees, and eucalyptus groves. strange scents and new pollen making my nose run.

golden moments

arrived in berkeley tonight. a few hours later than planned due to a nearly explosive car situation. the dear 84 tercel wagon, affectionately known as "the gold nugget" was nearing the destination, when hesitation and bucking began to occur at high RPMs. the car was already loaded to the gills with a clampett-esque precarious pile tied exhaustively onto the roof and the newly hatched engine troubles threatened to make the hills coming into berkeley impassable. uncertain if i should pull over or not, i figured that maybe i could eke out the last few miles at ridiculously slow speeds, dirty looks from speed demon californians be damned. but then, the bucking reached bronco levels, i heard a pop, and the car suddenly sounded like the muffler fell off... i calmly pulled into the emergency lane and the car died. red dash warning lights galore. i coasted to a stop in the grassy, glassy freeway shoulder. ugh.

i get out, crouch down on the side of the car as semis and aforementioned speed demons whip past me mere feet away. i look into the dim underbelly of my car, and i see the catalytic converter... a bulbous protrusion in the exhaust pipe that looks like a wimpy anaconda swallowed a wiener dog... and it's glowing red hot!

i back nervously away. uncertain if something is about to explode. grit and exhaust clinging to my throat, a mental tally of tow charges and mechanic fees ringing in my head. then i settle down, take another look, and see where a 15" silicon hose, melted by the extreme heat, has disconnected from the catalytic converter. after a few minutes of squirming under the car, duct tape and wire in hand (praying that an errant driver doesn't swerve into the emergency lane and clip my extended and vulnerable legs) the hose is reconnected. i get in, turn the key, and i'm off! i limp at 45mph 30 minutes down the freeway to my blessed ashby st. exit. those were very long miles.

moving into the new room. pictures and videos soon.

miss portland and sage and albert, but sense big possibilities here.

good buys

today is thursday and on saturday morning i leave for berkeley california to attend graduate school. i'll be studying landscape architecture. not lawns, not hedges, but ways we interact with or ignore the layers of information embedded in our environment. patches of meadows, the channel water cuts, animal trails in the woods, city streets, weeds in a vacant lot, they are all manifestations of profoundly vast flows of energy and memory buried in and imprinted upon the landscape. we live and die on the surface of the most fragile, microscopically thin shell, universe-distances below our feet and above our heads. we explore these questions: what happens at that interface? what role do we play as moderators of scale and form? how can we know if we're doing the right thing? how can it matter if we do the wrong thing? can we achieve balance if we think we're creating balance? where is reality created? i hope that investigation into and with the landscape will help me understand the next step with some of these questions. it is one tool of thought. finding the layers, finding the forms, glimpsing the weave.

this entry marks the true beginning of my acceptance that soon i am leaving town and seeking out new adventures in the south. i will miss all of my friends terribly. they have sustained and guided me for 6 years in portland and i have changed and grown with their friendship. i will also miss my best friend and partner, sage. we have grown together in a seamless way these past years, and to have those patterns interrupted is like losing a limb. but loss creates ragged edges and frayed ends that are fertile territory for new growth and new grafts. let the packing commence!

test

belg belc calm clam