Colors walking home

A lovely wall in the Castro.

seen on valencia st.

saw this walking home from friends' house after watching empire strikes back again. "I'm not afraid."

On my way to work

a lovely view of Mission Delores spire

napalm and mobile blogging

the image on the bottom is a sideways view of a blogger picture blog. very exciting, mobile blog I mean. for the pictures in yer phone you must send now.

on the top we have the black light ball show, my piece Napalm Reading #1. It's a car radiator, modified in various ways, then set over a light box in a dark room.

my teacher's teacher

A great article on Kobun Roshi, the teacher of Tim McCarthy, my teacher, my lineage.

A Dharma talk on the teaching of Chan Master Yunmen

When I was living in Ohio, I had a dream about my Zen teacher's house, and a book about Chan Master Yunmen was in the dream. I told Tim and he said I could borrow the book, which I still have, years later. I have been reading it again, starting last night while feeling lonely or having a problem with my "self". This links points to a Dharma talk that seems very good, definitely pointing out Yunmen's distinctive style. This brings me back to my roots in Zen which were the koans of Zen Flesh Zen Bones. They made "sense" 20 years ago and have a "deeper meaning" today. They are the bomb.

Hemingway and eternity

Topic: The Old Man and the Nobel

In 1954, Ernest Hemingway (whose birthday we celebrate) received the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Old Man and the Sea. Rather than a lengthy discourse, we shall turn, instead, to the author’s own acceptance speech. [As the Laureate was unable to be present at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1954, the speech was read by John C. Cabot, United States Ambassador.]


Having no facility for speech-making and no command of oratory nor any domination of rhetoric, I wish to thank the administrators of the generosity of Alfred Nobel for this Prize.


No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.


It would be impossible for me to ask the Ambassador of my country to read a speech in which a writer said all of the things which are in his heart. Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten.


Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.


For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.


How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.


I have spoken too long for a writer. A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it. Again I thank you.

chinese general eats too much noodle and loses mind

A fun way to start the day.

chinese general loses mind

this is great. A great way to start the day. I did not know that the Chinese, in the military or otherwise, were thinking along these lines. Super.

The Joy of Life

A great film about being queer, the beauty of San Francisco, suicide, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

For a good interview with the writer/director go here.