In my recent re-kindling of interest in astrology based on the prognostigations posted below, I subscribed to an email group from geocosmic.org. I thought it would be instructive to post some handwringing of astrologers over issues raised by prognostication of historical events:

I.
Astrology is about timing, about attitudes and feelings, and it's acted out with concrete
physical events and intangible emotions. We can point to phases in the
individual's chart(s) and speak of trends, but it's a bit harder to
pinpoint Aunt Grace tripping over Bobby's Hot Wheels Ferrari on the
fifth step from the top at 3:46 pm the day after Thanksgiving. We can
look at the chart of the event afterwards and ooh and aaah over the
correspondences, but putting it all down in black-and-white 6 weeks
before the incident is something else again.

We can see Significance in a WTC chart after the fact, in several USA
charts, and in (I'm sure) many of the victims' and perpetrators' charts
as well. Perhaps if the Earth had only two countries, six buildings and
eleven people, we might be able to speak in more detail, but Alas, and
Joy! the dynamics are more interwoven and complex than that.

Even if I never accurately predict an event with pinpoint precision,
even if I never come half as close as Hand or Shawvan, I'll still pore
over the charts of future and past in order to see a ray of light to
guide me and those who ask my help.

Paula

II.
While drafting an article this past July on the
Saturn/Pluto Opposition, I struggled with the option of citing
escalating suicide terrorism in the Palestinian uprising this past year
as both 1) an expression of Pluto in Sagittarius/Jupiter's recent Opposition
to Pluto and 2) indicating potential for escalation of suicide
terrorism to a global scale during the current Saturn/Pluto Opposition.
Generally, I write my articles for public/client information so as to bridge
social transits/trends and personal processes.

In deciding whether to include a terrorism prediction in
my article, I explored my sense of purpose and responsibility as an
astrologer. I discussed my deliberations with friends as I developed the article, and I included a
prediction for escalating suicide terrorism in early drafts of it.
In the end, my decision was consistent with my consultation practice
philosophy - that my purpose was to describe for readers/clients the
process, historical precedents, and specific social and personal
opportunities of this Saturn/Pluto opposition. In an educational supplement ('Basic Delineations') to my main
article published August 9 ('Saturn Opposes Pluto: Evolving Structures of
Thought, Language, and Communication'), I simply listed 'terrorism, organized labor, global
banking and finance' as expressing the 'extremes of size, power, and
experience' associated with Pluto. The 9/11 attacks gave me reason to question my decision to exclude a
prediction of suicide terrorism from my article.

In the days immediately following the attacks, friends encouraged me to
include such predictions in future articles, noting that even my thematic
prediction could have served to further my struggle for a consulting
livelihood. I examined more closely my basis for excluding the prediction
from my article: was it mostly an avoidance of professional risk and
responsibility? of being wrong? of falling into a stereotype of doomsday
profit? of contributing destructive energy to an open process?
In these ensuing weeks since the attacks, I am gradually reassured about my
decision to have excluded the terrorism prediction from my article. The
mundane articles by Rob Hand and Jim Shawvan published earlier this year are
masterful and invaluable contributions to our astrological community, world
culture and consciousness. As primarily a consulting astrologer for
individuals, intending to bridge social transits/trends and personal
processes for conscious living, I am satisfied that my article sans suicide
terrorism prediction also serves this purpose.

Now a month past the 9/11 attacks, I consider the salient features of this
historic event are 1) that we fully experience and thoroughly process our
experiences of this event, and 2) that we consciously respond as individuals
and cultures to the evolutionary opportunity that is the context for these
events. Except for the personal tragedies of all who suffer direct loss
from these attacks, predicting the terrorist attacks pales in significance
to offering a context for meaning and conscious, life-affirming evolution in
this historic juncture.

For any interested in reading my article, which includes a fair amount of
historical research, the link is
http://www.waterbearerastro.com/Astro_Info/astro_info.html#summer2001.

Karen

There is a lot of hand-wringing all around as we try to make sense of last month's attack and try to think what the future means for us. The Edge asked its illustrious membership of scientists, writers, thinkers, et.al. "What now?" and posted the 42,000 words of response. This is a different sort of handwringing than the examples above, richer in thought and response. In the end we ask ourselves what gives us more pleasure or resonates more greatly within us? And which of these words, if any, will make our lives safer from terror?

Our dogs, Chocolate and Freckles, must have been proud. They planted themselves in front of our picture window knawing at the remains of some animal. I went out to investigate, and Chocolate took the time to greet me with tail wagging, leaving what looked to be the fur coat of a deer behind for the moment. Freckles, the more independent one, kept chewing on a smaller but more impressive prize, a bone. Meanwhile, the fallow plains under the cloudy autumn sky, the bite in the air, and the sound of the distant train contributed to a brief bit of exhilaration, and a respite from my twin pursuits of learning html and monitoring the war on terrorism.

I think we all envy dogs their simple pursuits and their obvious wagging pleasures. Another less considered fact is that dogs, unlike some humans, don't believe in astrology, even though they are subject to the same natural cycles of day and night, moonlight and not, and the yearly changing of the seasons. Some of us humans, myself included, take an occasional and even obsessive interest in astrology. It occured to me, a few weeks after the attack, that if any event in recent history would be amenable to astrological analysis, the attack on the WTC would be one.

A Brief Apology for Astrology
I became interested in the subject several years ago, when I was driving a cab for a living. In one of my last years of driving, my brakes failed me three times, all with different vehicles that are maintained regularly. I lived down the street from a reclusive driver-colleague and astrologer. I began to follow my "transits," i.e., how the position of the planets in the daily sky were interacting with my birth chart. In each of these three cases, Mercury (the planet of transportation and my "ruling planet" as a Gemini) was aspecting my natal Uranus (representing machinery, upsets, and accidents) – with an exactitude of minutes. From that point on, I had no question that astrology "worked," though I continue to question whether it is useful. I became very enmeshed in it for a few years, probably because it seemed to me a repressed knowledge, true but archeologically buried under centuries of a widely different world view. Now I check-in from time to time to look at a friend's chart, or in times like these when one seeks understanding.

Astrology and the Attack of the World Trade Centers
I spent an evening and a morning researching sites and commentary regarding the WTC attack and found some interesting material, which I'd like to share with you. A word of caution: when visiting astrology sites, keep in mind that the graphics are usually horrible, and that many smart astrologers are not very good writers either. However, to use Robert Reich's terminology, they are in some cases excellent symbolic analysts, though the economic benefits don't usually acrue to them as readily as to the Reichian ones. (A dark thought: under an Islamic theocracy, astrologers might become more powerful, and our high-tech computational astrologers could give back to Arab culture the science that Ptolomy taught the West 2000 years ago.)

This listing of the more influential articles about the attack is a good place to start. I will refer and link to many of the articles in what follows.

The most interesting prognostication I find is from an article by Robert Hand, one of the smartest and most respected astrologers, and for years the head of the National Association of Geo-Cosmic Research, aka NGCR. It was published in August, and it goes into great detail about the Saturn-Pluto "face-off," with a table linking this aspect to great national events (wars and depressions, mostly) over the last century. This "oppositional" aspect he specifies is operational between August 5, 2001 through May 26, 2002, and prognosticates conflict in the Mideast. He writes, "...since World War II, there has been a marked tendency for these Saturn-Pluto aspects to coincide more or less with unrest in the Middle East, especially involving oil. It is hard to know whether there is something intrinsically "Saturn-Pluto" about the Middle East situation and, possibly, oil. Or is it just that Saturn-Pluto indicates stress that manifests wherever there is some kind of chronic historical situation? I suspect that it is the latter case, but at the same time, I also believe that the Middle East and the oil situation will continue to manifest Saturn-Pluto energy until the underlying historical stresses are resolved".

In an earlier article on the Bush presidency, published in the same magazine in April, outlines the potential for violence based on a reading of Bush's birth ("natal") chart, current planetary transits, as well as other accepted astrological techniques. The key date for him, writing last Spring, is January 14, 2002, concluding, "although we can never know in advance the exact events that will unfold under a given set of astrological indicators, it is quite possible to be clear about their nature. I set out to look for dates when Dubya’s Mars will be activated, specifically because I am concerned about the dangers that such activation brings. The potential for violence always exists. Although we cannot say whether these indicators point to terrorist attacks, an attempted assassination, or a more conventional war, they do seem likely to bring at least one major violent event affecting the U.S. and its president – and perhaps an entire new scenario of violence, which could last for quite a while."

In a compelling sidebar to the article, he maps Bush's natal chart onto a map of the world (a fascinating technique called "astrolocality," which I have used on occasion with great interest, if not results), he points out his Mars/Midheaven line (Mars being the planet of war, the Midheaven signifying ambition) mapped directly over Afganistan and Pakistan.

The key chart of the event is for 8:46am in New York City, the moment of the first attack. What seems so strangely and stupidly obvious for anyone who has a basic knowledge of astrology is that, at the precise moment of the plane colliding into the first tower, the planet Mercury –known traditionally as the "winged messenger"– was rising directly on the horizon (in astrological terms, Mercury was conjunct the Ascendent). Mercury is a fast-moving planet and, as in the three cases of my brake failures, is often the agent of timing for a larger event. In the case of the WTC attack, Mercury was not only coming over the horizon, but it was also aspected to the dreaded Saturn-Pluto opposition detailed by Rob Hand. It is truly a remarkable astrological configuration, and will keep astrologers busy applying what they have learned through the synchonicity evident on September 11, 2001 to the analysis of future (and past) events.

For those interested in reading further about "mundane" astrology (the use of astrology for the analysis and interpretation of worldy events), there is an interesting article which emerged from this flurry of astrological thinking, concerning which version is the correct birth chart to be used for the founding of the United States – here. For an introduction to history and astrology in the context of September 11, see The New Global Perspective by Rick Levine.

Of course, who of us really cares about the astrological indicators of all of these worldly events? What we really want to know is whether it will be a good day following our morning cup of coffee. So this post wouldn't be complete without a link to a site you can get free daily horoscopes based on your birth time and place data. Enjoy it while you can – and fasten your seat belts for this Saturn-Pluto ride, courtesy of our winged messenger Mercury.

When I went for one of my multi-daily feedings at the Metafilter trough yesterday, there was a post linking to a 1993 article by Huntington on the "clash of civilizations". One of the comments linked to a series of articles from their archives on issues relevant to what happened on 9-11. Funny, but I received an invitation to subscribe to Foreign Affairs yesterday too. Maybe the marketing department of Foreign Affairs saw a great opportunity to expand their subscriber base, and did a mass mailing of a subscription offer. I don't mention this cynically: the First Law of Memes states that information is survival.

When is information harmful? I’ve passed by articles on the web post-9-11 that wonder what effect the repetition of tragic events have on the people glued to the tube. Being stunned by the 9-11 events was normal; even without a TV I remained glued to the internet for days. The deep emotional root has been struck in either case of media. The difference is perhaps like that between an endless tunnel and a maze. In the former, the information is streamed to you, surrounding you with its repetition and its and controlling way. There is enough variation to keep you going along the path, and there is a promise of understanding infinitely deferred. In the latter example of the maze, you are left alone amidst a universe of information, organized to be sure; but the experience is one of frustration, delay, imprisonment, and confusion. There is a goal – being centered within an understandable universe – but each bit of information could be an opening to that goal or a wall preventing you from reaching it.

The terrorist network that planned and implemented the recent tragic events chose their targets carefully: they realized the information overload that would result from the destruction of these two icons: the monolithically erect landmarks of rationalized economic productivity on the one hand; and the massive pentagular sprawl of military might on the other. These terrorists were our Information Overlords in the attack and its immediate aftermath. In order not to become enmeshed in the snare of the information maze nor captured within the endlessness and futility of a controlling media, we must rebuild our information networks for survival advantage. That’s what I call information architecture: not creating maps for a fly stuck in a bottle, but, a la Wittgenstein, helping the fly navigate a way out of the bottle.

(Maybe I subscribe to Foreign Affairs.)

There have been more than enough words already about what happened on 9-11, and we can expect even more. I really don't feel like plugging the complex of emotions, thoughts, and apprehensions I am experiencing into any pre-existing framework like memetics, journal writing, and the like. Maybe later. For now, I'd just like to suggest a few links that might help achieve some understanding about this unravelling situation:

This article provides a context for understanding Mideast terrorism, and envisions at least the possibility of a reasonable and substantive solution. I found it on the community weblog Metafilter.

Robert Fisk of Independent.co.uk met with bin Laden a few times beginning in 1996 and has written an excellent profile on him. Also from the same source, Mary Dejevsky wrote an insightful profile of George W. I look forward to reading other profiles from The Independent, as they try to get at the heart of character and to some degree succeed, a hard thing to do.

I didn't have a TV during the Iraqi war, so I missed CNN's world stage debut and all those videos of smartbombs. I still don't have a TV but now there's the internet, and CNN's site makes it easy to access the most recent news, and reminds you how repetitive and obsessive TV news really is. I assume the news is updated just as frequently as on TV – when there is new news. Instead of watching the same images or talking heads over and over, I can bring up Metafilter, allowing me to filter through many links from the "official media" myself, along with commentary from individuals in the community, first-person accounts, and any background material anyone has sought to bring forth.

I found Stratfor through Metafilter, which is an excellent source for intelligence and analysis on a wide range of subjects, with special concern given now to the recent attacks. It was probably there that I came across this article by an Army analyst from several years ago, on the difficulties the Soviets found in fighting a war in Afghanistan.

Whatever recession analysts might be predicting, it won't be of information. There will be a wealth of words, a dearth of meaning. Finding something amid the dross that can encapsulate our new experience and our new fears will be our challenge.

I discovered, or re-discovered the Principia Cybernetica Web. I vaguely remember being here before, but I suppose I wasn't ready for it. Maybe I'm not even ready now. As a patriotic American everyman, I distrust philosophy: it's just so many words. I prefer PRAGMATIC can-do suggestions over arcane, inaccessible theorizing. Ah, but...

It's at least worthy as a cheap thrill. Browsing through the Principia was a great way to pass a morning, pondering the Essential Questions. Where do I join? Maybe I'll unsubscribe from a few of my ClickZ lists and add one on the Global Brain from the Principia.

I'm really a sucker for philosophy, especially when it seems "real," and not merely academic. Like encountering an installation of sculptures at Bergamot Station in Los Angeles, not so interesting in itself, but for the pencil-scrawled philosophizing on the wall. The artist teaches philosophy in Southern California, and came by his "thought-system" during a time in his life that his father was very ill. There is a sort of urgency in his philosophy for it to actually DO something. Like, "let's THINK real hard so we can REDUCE SUFFERING." Sort of the opposite of Buddha's "let's NOT think so we can escape the whole mess" (a paraphrase, obviously).

One philosophical text that had a big influence on me when I was in art school was Theodore Adorno's Negative Dialectics. At least the first sentence was (which was probably the only part of the text I read and possibly understood, and which, again, I paraphrase): "Philosophy lives on, because the moment to realize it has been missed." I based a small video piece on that, lugging our 3/4" video camera around to different locations in San Francisco (like Fisherman's Wharf) reciting that sentence like a TV news talking head. Clever or not, I think engaging in acts like that –i.e., purposeful art activity – has the effect of insinuating a group of concerns within our psyche, that can resonate in our life for years to come.

I guess I still hold onto that grumbling phrase, written after the experience of a world war by a German Marxist: "Philosophy lives on, because the moment to realize it has been missed." Is this why I turned to design from art? ("Design lives on because art and philosophy messed up.") Is it why I turned to business and brand from design idealism?

Design lives on because it can only be realized – through the power of the possible. What will be, already is. The problem is seeing it, thinking it through, stewarding it though its evolution, towards fruition.

Theodore Adorno, please forgive me.

Richard Dawkins, the inadvertent founder of Memetics, gave an acceptance speech recently for an honor he was awarded by the Foundation for the Future in Seattle, written up in Reason magazine by Ronald Bailey. The author suggests that not only was Dawkins' talk interesting for the insight he brought to his subject matter, the evolutionary capacity of humans to plan for the future, but also was revealing for how he was trying to grapple with how "the institutions of free markets and property rights can help humanity plan for the future better."

This is a reassuring hint to me that the relationship between brands and memes is not really so specious.

Robert Clark wrote a wonderful book on the Columbia, called River of the West: A Chronicle of the Columbia, which is an engaging semi-fictionalized account of the river, beginning from the first salmon to the more recent struggles over fishing rights of the Yakima Indians. In between, it covers the early exploration of the Spanish by boat, the explorations of Lewis and Clark, and the colonization by fur traders. Good history and storytelling.

Partly out of curiosity and a desire to explore Portland, and partly just to get off the farm after a draining week, we drove to Portland to see some art. Yesterday was "Last Thursday," the less established, "alternative" version of "First Thursday," the typical gallery walk. It takes place on Alberta Street, in a traditionally African- and Mexican-American neighborhood, that is now becoming gentrified. So we vacuumed the mouse nest off of the manifold of our Miata, turned down the convertible roof, and headed out the driveway on a very hot and sunny afternoon.

It is a journey to the city of almost two hours time. Driving generally relaxes me, and on a sunny day with the top down and a nice road, I have all the space I need to reflect. It's not too noisy in the convertible, but nonetheless, Amery and I don't feel compelled to discuss our lives with one another. It's pleasant just to sit. Driving, in the right situation, is like meditation, as there is something to concentrate on –the road, staying alive – but there is ample room to allow the mind to wander and to watch. Here, in the Columbia River Gorge, it is perhaps more like a directed meditation, as the shifting landscape providing a stream of content that is as alluring as it is, in the end, incomprehensible.

With the mouse-free engine we drive the one mile it takes to reach the street, and proceed another bit to get to the two lane highway. Turning from gravel to a paved road, I can bring the car to fifth gear, one short of the highest. It's a winding road up, then down from High Prarie to the town of Lyle. More often than not I am in fourth gear, finding the optimum balance of speed and rpm around the curves. About two-thirds the way and seven miles from the farm, we approach the crest overlooking the Gorge, which is always a thrill when space and panorama replace the interior confines of the mountain roads. Neither letting my mind wander too far away, nor allowing the adrenalin of the gear shaft and accelerator whisk me off, I pay attention to the road, which provides me with the mortal test of the sharpest curve. I pass, but Amery tells me she has seen several who haven't. I take it easy, and follow the road down its last curves to Lyle.

At Lyle we turn onto Washington State Route 14, another two-laner that is nestled between the steep rock cliffs on our right and the freight tracks on the left, with the river spreading grandly below. The road is one of gentle curves and hills. I am always immediately humbled by the rocks. They tower above us in all manner of shape, form, and texture. I never refuse a glance, yet am unable to fix my gaze on the unending variation. I'm driving at 60 mph, and I wonder whether it is the speed which creates the desire to fixate on this rich wealth of forms. If I were to stop, the cliffs would perhaps seem that much more static and impenetrable: going along, we are seduced by immobility, but find our way only by moving on.

As a child, during what might have been a lonely time of my life, I loved rocks. I considered rocks my friends, and even remember writing some poems about them. It seemed to me then, and still does now, that there is a being in rocks that is no less remarkable than the being we find in each other. Perhaps, as a young child, it was the enchantment of a long-lived experience that intrigued. Maybe I admired the way that the forces that shaped rocks gave them their hardened form, which was still only a moment in their openness to further experience.

We slow down to pass through the town of Bingen, and briefly accelerate towards the Hood River Bridge. It is small and narrow green bridge, with a metal grating that reveals the river below our whizzing tires. After paying our toll on the Oregon State side, we enter the onramp for Interstate 84 towards Portland. I set my cruise control for 69 mph.

Thus beings the next and longest phase of our journey. There are six lanes rather then two, and the rock cliffs don't hover so insistently. The tracks are still visible, with the occasional long-chained freight train passing through. There is space and panorama here now, and a sunny sky. We see the mountains which lead to the outcroppings of rocks, which border the river. There are windsurfers sailing on the river, in abundance generally, as the Gorge is one of the great centers of the sport. It feels good to be on this road, with this panorama.

Vaguely reminding me of Chinese landscapes garnered from paintings, the images I receive are rather seared into my brain as representing the archetypal West. They are real, however, simply green mountains and brown rock formed into various permutations of form by the slow acting out of geologic processes – or the violent collision of forces over time – whichever way you wish to view it. Over the summer I've been here, I've done this ride many times, and it seems both always new and deeply familiar. The combination of river and cliff provides an alternation between broad and flowing expanse on the one hand, and towering yet static immutable presence, on the other. The proliferation of rock forms suggest movement and dynamism of force, yet are frozen in time to our eyes. The river's force is visible, but only slightly: originating in a remote part of British Columbia, it is the largest river on this side of the Continental Divide – the current is swift below.

There is a deep sense of belonging as I pass through this landscape, but also a sense of being left with fragments and clues of a story I don't yet understand. I always try to put the story together, whatever story it is, but in the end, I am left only with what I see in front of me, and the feeling of pleasure and privilege of passing through. The comprehension will have to wait, maybe be infinitely deferred, while the pleasure is now, travelling on cruise control in our Miata on a bright sunny day in the Gorge.

Today we made what I think is the best frittata of my life. It was a collaboration, and a result of an attempt to clean out the icebox. I think that many people don’t realize that the delicious, precisely defined and described dishes that are served at fancy four-star restaurants come out of the same attempt: taking stock of the "primordial soup" (a large and varied pantry composed of numerous items in various stages and combinations between the raw and the cooked); an invention, decision, and declaration of what could be used and what must be used from this primordial soup; a meaning/value analysis (considering the diner’s point of view); and finally the creation of a dish, the giving of title, description, and price.

In this case, it was much simpler. Sally had gone to the chicken coop and gathered one warm, freshly laid egg; with nine others from the week it formed the backbone of the frittata. And there were the three portobellos we bought from the store. I saw a medium-sized onion on the counter (a Walla Walla Sweet, grown on the other side of the Cascades, and the equivalent to the Southern Vidalia); and Sally found a bag of Poblano peppers in the fridge. Amery, who started a garden this summer, has been collecting the herbs to fill a container as large as a lettuce bin. We chose sage and basil for the frittata portion, while she chose a good portion of the mint for a cucumber and gorgonzola salad. Coming into play as well were the dried herbs, thyme and marjoram, hanging upside-down by the window; I usually cannot resist placiing a warm pan under the herbs while gently stroking the herbs to let their leaves fall.

So herewith and post facto I’d like to share the recipe for Herbaceous Frittata with Portobello, Poblano, and Walla Walla Sweets, served with Cucumber, Gorgonzola, and Mint salad (Frittata con molti erbe, portobello, poblano ed i Walla Walla Sweets, serviti con il cetriolo, gorgonzola e la menta):

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cut a medium to large sweet onion in half lengthwise, then in half-inch slices. Slice two to three portobellos also in half-inch slices lengthwise. Mince as generous an amount of garlic as you like. Slice a generous amount of sage leaves thinly and crosswise, and roughly chop as much thyme, marjoram, or any other herbs you like, keeping separate from the sage. Chop as much parsley as you like as well. Grate some Monterey Pepperjack or other cheese as desired.

With mise-en-place accomplished, warm a generous portion of olive oil over medium heat on the stove, in a medium large saute pan that can subsequently be placed in the oven. Add a generous portion of the garlic and most or all of the sage, cooking until it begins to sizzle and you smell the aroma nicely. Turn the heat to high, and as the garlic begins to brown, add the onion slices. Turn to coat and mix, reducing the heat to medium. When the onions have softened and separated, add the portobellos, poblanos, sage and other cut herbs, reserving the parsley and basil. Add a generous portion of salt to help the onions and mushrooms sweat, stirring to coat, cover loosely and turn heat to medium low. After several minutes (once they have released most of their moisture), uncover, turn to high, and burn the moisture completely off.

Push the vegetables to the side of the pan forming a doughnut hole. Melt some buttter in the bottom in the pan. Stir, taking the pan off the heat. Sprinkle the cheese on the vegetables, add the chopped parsley and salt to the eggs, and pour the egg mixture over all. Place the pan in the oven.

Meanwhile, skin the cucumber and dice into thick small pieces. Mince garlic and place in a bowl with olive oil to sit (this can be done before you start on the eggs). Crumble a generous portion of gorgonzola cheese in the bottom of the bowl and mash into the oil. Add lemon to the mash, and finish to taste by adding more olive oil, salt and pepper. Take a generous portion of mint and chop coarsely. Add mint and cucumber to bowl and mix. Finish with crumbled gorgonzola and serve on plates to be accompanied by the frittata.

The frittata should take approximately 20 minutes to cook. Eggs are a delicate protein, and most of us cook them for convenience’s sake, generally on too high heat and for too long. If you pay close attention to your eggs, whether making an omelette, frittata, or scrambled, and don’t overcook, they make for an entirely different and even elegant experience. So watch your frittata in the oven. Make sure you don’t overcook. Check frequently when they are almost done, by inserting a knife to judge inner warmth and gooeyness. The ideal is for them to be 98% set when you take them out. By the time they reach the table they should just be finishing, setting around the vegetables. The cheese, having melted slowly will be the better for it as well. Waiting until the end to chop the basil and toss on top allows the full aroma of the basil to be felt.

As I find in all great cooking, the ideal is for a cohesive whole within which one can differentiate the parts. The dish is the end result of its travel from the pantry and the field to the table. When one has selected ingredients one likes – the best ones – uses them generously, prepares them carefully, and shares them with friends or family, the effect is both memorable and pleasurable. A recipe cannot codify this, but it can transmit the set of instructions to be imitated and reiterated through time and across generations that, accompanied by pleasure, provides an important basis for our fondest memories.

The High Prarie Neighborhood Association held its monthly meeting this week over at the Taylor's place. I thought it would be interesting to go, particularly since we don't know for sure whether we will be settling here for good or will be only in the Lyle area occassionally. I accompanied Sally and James. It was held in a former church on the Taylor's place, which at one point had been turned into a chicken coop, then fixed up for a wedding, and now is a sometimes meeting place for the community. It is a beautful, austere modest space, with a decorative frieze of wheat painted on the wall.

There were about 20 community members there, in what I had been told would be an important meeting due to issues with the fire department that had arisen recently. (I knew that James drove the Amery's Peterbilt flatbed with Chris, one of the Fire Commissioners, to pick up a firetruck that had blown up while on its way to help fight a fire in far northern Washington.)

The meeting was called to order by Martha, a retired geologist whose annual July Fourth party I had the pleasure of attending, with Icey taking minutes. At first dealing with the unfinished business on the agenda, there was discussion of a five-year plan for the area. Some suggestions were for a farmer's market, a community center, or even a grocery store for the town. (Afterwards during the socializing, one gentleman suggested a liquor store would be an improvement, selling cottage cheese, milk, eggs and coffee in addition.) After a date was set for a meeting to get the public's input, the members of HPNA then discussed an initiative for the teenagers to raise money for a teen center by the recycling of bottles and cans (nearby Oregon has a deposit return). There was much discussion on whether the teenagers would even do it, given their behavioral characteristics at end of summer, particularly for those who had been working the harvest; and where the deposit money would go should the adults end up doing most of the work. Doug Taylor offered a spot on his property as a staging area as well as Patrice, who also had some lumber that could be used to construct a bin.

At the close of unfinished business, Fred (one of the fire commissioners, along with Chris and Doug) was recognized by Martha, and he brought up a concern that the HPNA should keep the Fire Department informed when requisitioning equipment for the department. Chris spoke up as well as Nayland, a fireman, regarding a radio that had been recently donated to one of the firetrucks that Nayland was driving. At this point, the secretary and Nayland's wife Icey got up from her chair, put her papers away, and walked out of the room off the stage-side door, slamming it behind her. Pretty soon she returned from the front door, and offered her two cents regarding the donated radio for the truck her husband took to the fire. Her view was recognized, with Sally now taking notes, but she was called out of order by Martha. I was, of course, left fairly stupefied, and my attention from that point forward was clearly within the walls of the building, and not as formerly upon the setting sun over the handsome Taylor ranch.

At that point Chris, who had anticipated much of the concern regarding the expectations for the fire department, said he had prepared a long statement. He had been very concerned when the fire truck blew up on its trip north, particularly since the department would have received several thousand dollars for its participation, but now they were left with a hefty repair bill. Most city dwellers would be unfamiliar with how a rural fire department runs. The land out West is hot and susceptible to fires, which can cause massive damage to a farmer's crops. Until recently, the newest fire truck the High Prarie department owned was a 1947 vintage. The current trucks are not much newer, and are given to the department by the Federal Government once they have been pretty much used up, with the stipulation that the Feds can requisition them for emergency fires when needed. This might leave one remaining truck to fight a several-hundred acre fire locally should it break out. Both trucks are in constant state of repair. The three commissioners are elected to the non-paid posts, and the department, which was formed by my wife's father Tom with Doug Taylor, is all volunteer. Chris gave an effective and even moving statement from the heart regarding the situation of the fire department: basically, it revolves around the absence of money, shortage of manpower, Federal and State regulations, and well-meaning dedication.

It seemed strange to be in this room and be witness to this emotional meeting, for something that most of us take for granted. Personal politics were part of it, as they always are in a community of individuals. The universality of this fact struck me, as if the content of what was being discussed (a radio donation, the state of the fire department, etc.) had far less importance than the rituals of human interaction (the exhibition of power and responsibility, the clashing of individual needs with rules of conduct and behavior, and, forever, the need to let one's voice be heard). More truely, what transpired that evening gave evidence that no matter what the situation we stir up, it is to allow the bottom silt of our heart to arise and conmingle within the social discourse of our communities, throughout the duration of our lives.

Today, we left the farm for an errand in White Salmon, the next town over, about a 40-minute drive. On the way back up the hill to high prarie, we slowed down so that a gaggle of turkeys – about seven or eight in all – could cross the street, in an orderly single file. "Turkey" is a hard word to get your head around for an American like me when you see them like that. I saw them "in the wild," but they definitely didn't act "wild."

Upon arriving at the road leading to the farm, we were stopped by a road worker, who informed us our road was being oiled. (It was paved finally, a historic moment for the Amery farm.) So we decided to do our other errand in The Dalles (the town's name comes from the French "les dalles," meaning the "trough" where the explorers and settlers would stop near the Columbia River to trade with the Indians). Heading in the opposite direction from White Salmon at about 60 miles per hour, we see a crow land just on the other side of the double yellow lines ahead. We were both surprised to see that it didn't flinch or fly away, even though we sped by within a few feet of its designated landing spot.

After our errand, we are coming back along the same road when my wife shrieks "A mouse!". She said she saw a mouse tail appear coming out of the crack where the hood meets the body of the car in front of the windshield. So we drive this time up the newly tarred road in first gear to protect our low Miata body, and once in the garage lift the hood to discover a nest of leaves just in the cranny of the manifold. We also saw a mouse escape near the car, but weren't able to catch it. So we set some traps with peanut butter and hope we are able to get it out before it does damage. My wife's sister Sally had a mouse set up house in her car's air conditioning system, and found 20 pounds of cat food stored there when she took it in to get fixed!

I had been planning on blogging on a book I recently began to read, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, but nature is invading and neutralizing my memetic ambitions today. James, who is twenty, says he long ago accepted that nature takes over all up here on the farm. I can now foresee an end to the Klickitat Memery: an auto-da-fe.

I’m back on the farm after a six day trip to the upper Northwest, driving to Bellingham to visit friends, and visiting Vancouver and Seattle. Both cities have changed remarkably since my last visit in the mid-Eighties, Seattle from the Microsoft behemoth, Vancouver with the massive Asian immigration.

Vancouver is a mirage, a true standing meme. It’s a meme as monument, a constant fluctuation back and forth from pure physicality and cultural hallucination. It’s a city existing on a quantum level, exhibiting both undeniable monumentality and pure mirage at the same time. Presumably, we should always be experiencing this fluctuation wherever we are; after all, scientists have long told us that at the quantum level all is fluctuation (if I may crudely paraphrase). Normally, all this uncertainty is imperceptible, just as the memes that we create (or that use us to perpetuate themselves) are for all intents and purposes invisible to us.

Makes me think of John Carpenter’s film They Live, where in a Los Angeles dominated by the usual commercial messages in billboards, television, etc., there exists a race of aliens that look like humans, but they can see the true messages underlying the universe of advertising: Reproduce and Die, Believe and Submit and the like.

The point is, in the Carpenter film and in our memetic world, that it is a struggle to see the signifying apparatus that we exist within, that creates us as we help create it. At certain points (as when you can get a hold of those special sunglasses that allow you to see the alien messages), it becomes apparent if we look for it. In the case of a memeplex like Vancouver, the solidity of the city evaporates before our eyes as it fluctuates between nature and construct; and standing in the center of Robson street in the midst of Eaton’s, Virgin, and Max Mara we are in the belly of the beast, within the exhilaration of emptiness, part of and apart from the standing meme running through us.

Friday began "Neon Nights" in The Dalles, the closest decent-sized town at 30 miles and at least a few thousand people. It's one of the oldest towns settled out here, a stop for Lewis and Clark, and with a legend of a watering hole that onced housed several thousand bottles of whiskey a week. The architecture is a combination of old West brick along with 50s to 70s store signage along the strip. Looks a little ragtag at the margins, but the city council has put a million dollars or two into fixing it up to restore some of its luster and heritage.

There is a restaurant and saloon there, Baldwin's, recently bought by by an outgoing former employee originally from Bulgaria, whose name I presently forget. He says he knows everyone in The Dalles, and he's probably right. He presides over an establishment with the best food in town at good prices, and a respectable selection of local microbrews and Pinot Noirs. The walls are filled with salon-style turned saloon-style painting by a turn-of-the-century local landscapist which are gorgeous not only for their privileged subject matter (The Gorge), but also for their impressive, classic oil technique. Those, and the piano staged on a one-person balcony over the dining tables, made it for me, the first time I met my wife's family, a remarkable eatery. Adding to the gestalt were the passing freight trains only a few yards away, and a magnificent grain elevator around which the birds would swirl, and which unfortunately burned down a year later in an act of arson.

So John, my wife's brother, invited us down to the opening event of Neon Nights, "Cruise 2001", which took place in front of his Internet-hosting business on 2nd Avenue. He told us that everyone brought their old cars to town, but that didn't prepare me for a signifying parade like I've never seen. James, the youngest brother, drove us down in his '84 Ford XLT Diesel, one of the younger of the trucks on the farm and clocking 280k well-maintained miles. After crossing the Columbia via the Dalles Bridge, we headed to the center of town, which inadvertently caused us to become part of the parade. It put us in a sort of a ethical conundrum, since we didn't know whether we deserved to be surrounded by a 60s Corvette, a 30s Dodge truck, and the crowd of spectators. But we were headed to John's parking lot, and found him and Jill in front.

It goes beyond "a guy thing;" I think, is definitely an American thing; and perhaps far exceeds that into the obscure regions of design and memery. This is different than a vintage car show for two reasons: First, the cars are all in operation along the city streets on a weekend night. Second, this isn't an official parade of the Memorial variety, sanctioned and organized. Anyone who wants to ride through town in their car is welcomed, so along with the succession of shiny and restored vintage cars you also saw us in our '84 Ford, another in their 70s clunker, someone else in their new BMW, etc., et. al., ad infinitum in a glorius revolving circle of post-history. I spotted my father's 50s-era Olds 500, the first car I remember, and wanted to stop it from moving, to fix it permanently as my privileged memory alone. There was the sheer pleasure of seeing the old boats, the gas guzzlers with personalities that is America's glorius and voluble tradition.

Beyond this is the shared attempt by all to place each passing model, from the original Model T to the Chrysler PT, within the historical stream, whether 1929 or 2000. As a nation, the United States might suffer from not being multi-lingual, but the capacity to be so still resides in the collective American car unconsious of brand recognition. Admittedly obscure and of little use to many, yet rich in resonance and possibility. There is a grammar of visual form being articulated before my eyes on 2nd Avenue in The Dalles on a Friday night. It is partly pure pleasure, like the elision of desire watching others dance at a junior high school "beehive" night, and partly stimulating in me the humbling awareness of the challenges facing anyone who proposes to design something of iconic lasting value, or who merely has the task of "managing" brands.

How are icons like "'59 T-Bird," "57 Chevy," "66 Mustang" inserted within the collective American car unconscious (heretofore known as CACU)? Is it design or ideology, or collective rest stops within the passing fashion parade? (In an interesting footnote, a book was recently published by Dr. Stanley Leiberson of Harvard, "A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change". His research points away from externally-driven causes in changes of fashion, yet he proposes it does change in a gradual and orderly way that "reflects mechanisms that we can understand." The Chomskian Cacu, perhaps?

Watching the parade of cacu in its simultaneity of historical form, my mind in its unruly way even stopped to consider that we were fast approaching the "Omega Point" that Teilhard de Chardin posited and that Terence McKenna (also Jesuit educated) refered to as "The Transcendental Object at the End of Time." According to McKenna, our encounter with this transcendental object is supposed occur in 2012. So come grab a seat for The Dalles Neon Cruise 2012 and experience the ride to the end of time in the front seat of an American finned Cadillac.

There was an interesting post in a "Dynamist" discussion group yesterday about an article on environmentalism in this week's The Economist. It is written by a Danish statistician who wanted to refute the anti-environmentalist views of a well-known economist, but who in the end found the data supporting him. The article begins describing the shared linguistic roots of "eco-nomist" and "eco-logist" and wonders why, sharing this root "home" these disciplines are often at loggerheads.

One hot topic whose basis he refutes is the Kyoto Agreement. According to research published by the UN Climate Change Panel, the effect of Kyoto would be to delay a rise of an expected 2.1 degrees centigrade of warming within 100 years by only 6 years. In other words, it saves the world a warming of 0.2 degrees centigrade over a 100 year period. Bjorn Lomborg states in the article, "Yet, the cost of Kyoto, for the United States alone, will be higher than the cost of solving the world's single most pressing health problem: providing universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Such measures would avoid 2m deaths every year, and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill".

Being on the farm here has opened my eyes to the interplay of environmental and economic factors. But I also think that it has relevance for branding. I take as a given that branding is a discipline that deals with the value (cost) of meaning. Like Robert Rauschenberg saying he operated in the space between art and life, branding operates in the space between meaning and value. On a memetic level, we might say that that memes operate in the space between the production of meaning and the survival (successful transmission) of meaning.

The point is that most of us are very comfortable in supporting the environmental cause. It is an emotional issue. As human beings living on the earth, we want to protect our environment. We are implicitly-branded environmentalists, which is why there are so many hot-trigger issues there. That might not be the reality, though. To succeed in making our "home" a better place, there is a cost/value analysis that must take place, but whose findings might disrupt the emotional bonding that has taken place with conventionally understood "environmentalism."

This might require a re-examination of books such as Marc Gobe's "Emotional Branding," to see if they articulate a way to ascertain the value of emotionally-based brands, and understand the challenges.

A friend writes: "Checked back on [your blog] last week.....what happened after July 17? It's like you're reading a good book and then it suddenly ends and one feels a bit at loss. Is there more to come?" Ah, I have a fan. I've been wondering that myself. Once you put down a story, often it is hard to pick it up. Even if, as with the Klickitat Memery, it is your own story you are creating, e.g., that of the gentleman farmer and blogger.

The simplest explanation is that I've been concentrating on the "Me, Me, meme." Stuff to do, a conflicting story to create, that of the job-seeker and job-doer, that leaves less time for the gentleman blogger. Alas, I've been learning a little more about the mechanics of html as I've led myself through the web design process both for my own site and for a friend's. Learning more about the planning of usability, and about all the other roles I've been further from while within my art directing role.

So I humbly submit my primitive but hopefully engaging site to my anonymous readers' purview. It's a content-slog, the me-me-memes of my life as expressed in discrete visual images.

The reason I finally post today is not to distribute my url, but because I saw my first rattlesnake yesterday. Watched my brother-in-law James from my window attacking it with a shovel, and walked out to see the dismembered result: the venom filled head sitting quietly in the dust, and the rest of it writhing away, shuddering, and after a while, still. Not so large as I imagined, but then again my wife saw it as larger as we described it to our 6-year old niece Tati. She wasn't so interested, having encountered several last year outside her bedroom door on the lawn.

Also these past few days some beautiful quail have been visiting us right outside our window. Perhaps they are making a nest on our roof. They aren't as flitty as other birds I've encountered, they stay close and seem a little curious. They probably shouldn't get too curious: I keep thinking of glove-boning them while in culinary school, where you remove all their bones without destroying the remaining meat, so they can be conveniently stuffed. I've always wanted to reproduce the quails stuffed with foie gras that the film Babette's Feast so lovingly described.

Another encounter with a bird was more humanitarian. Sally dropped Tati's bike on her head last weekend; my wife and Tati raced out of the house to bring her to the doctor. A little while later I hear a buzzing sound in the livingroom. It turns out to be a hummingbird frantically trying to find the exit in front of the plate glass doors. I grab a bowl and gently talk to the bird, asking it to allow me to help. Remarkably, it stays stationary while I place the bowl over it, slip a cover sheet of paper between it and the window, and take the package to the open door from whence it came. I felt proud of myself, a little tinge at least.

More animal stories: there have been cougar sitings, according to neighbors and the front page of the local newspaper. Apparently there were only 200 in Oregon in 1961 and are about 4000 now (we're actually in Washington, but they must be similar). The blacktail deer are plentiful (their regular prey) as described elsewhere in this Memery. However, the Department of Natural Resouces have us on the alert for a disease that is affecting the deer, "blue tongue disease." We are supposed to report any recently deceased deer that look like they had starved, and that might have died frothing at the mouth. Haven't seen any fitting the description, but the three deer we saw while 4-wheeling could have been caused by that. It was too late to tell.

The dogs are funny. We've been harvesting the wheat the last few days. (I was trained on Saturday and was on my own yesterday.) For some reason, the dogs–usually both, but sometimes only Chocolate–follow the Combine around the fields all day, returning utterly exhausted. I thought initially they were interested in chasing field mice, or anything else that scutters away from this monster machine. They don't seem interested in hunting, though. What's funny is that they don't follow the harvesting of the hay, but apparently every year they religiously follow the wheat Combine. Funny dogs.

No more animal stories to tell now. And anyway, I'm scheduled on the Combine. Hope to be more regular in my postings.

Linked back to peterme's discussion thread on branding again this morning, not intentionally, and I’m still a bit perplexed and bemused. The UX antibodies have sensed a foreign virus, and it is fascinating to watch the defenses, the accommodation and the battles in the interaction with: “branding”. Am I any different? Probably not, and I have found a new suit of armor to wear – Memetic Theory – in my attempt to educate all, with missionary zeal, in the triumph of the brand-eme.

First, with a broad stroke, I attempt to banish the interloper – UX – by association with the outmoded, if not discredited: It appears that user-centered doctrine is based in a traditional Darwinist “survival of the fittest” Weltansicht mixed with a more familiar cultural hamstring, Amerikanischer Puritanism. Here goes: Our job as designers is to develop a better, more successful product (read: organism) that will, by virtue of its superior qualities, will survive in the marketplace (read: cold, cruel world). Of course, any association with marketing (read: Eve, the Devil) will corrupt the product and the user (read: us, poor sinners).

On the other hand, a brand-centric point of view recognizes that, first, and foremost, we are symbolic creatures and that we live and die on Signs. In neo-Darwinian fashion, we believe that it will remain a battle for the fittest. It won’t be the best product or tool that wins necessarily: we’ve overcome that (wir haben überwunden das), it’s second nature to us already. Our work as designers begins and ends with Being, what’s coming over the horizon, capturing the usable, and making it live and resonate within our symbolic arsenal. It WILL function, we’ll make sure of that; but first, let it be part of the thriving excess of signs, symbols, jingles and doo-dads. In other words, let it be a Meme.

OK, now that the monster is out of the box, let me restate it: Our work as designers is to develop ever more compelling memes that allow symbolic association and identity to thrive between the brand and its functional components. By virtue of the symbolic association a person has with the brand, as -conveyed- through the physicality, functionality, and usability of the product, this brand will thrive in the marketplace, adapting itself over time, using its toolbox of signs, symbols, and the products themselves as vehicles for its own perpetuation. Thus, we seek the best user experience and functionality, and our success will encode for future generations more exacting standards, both for the usability of our products as well as for the symbolic arena in which we primarily live.

Back at the ocean, just after sunset, door open to hear to waves. A roar, really, in a state between steady and continual flux. "White noise," they call it.

This morning at 6:30 perusing a discussion thread on branding – two, actually – that Christina forwarded to me. I'm taken aback by the sheer fecundity of the discussions: plethora of participants, of ideas, pronouncements, posturings, insights, gobbledygook, humor, analysis and the rest. It has a peculiar effect on me, up here on the farm. What was my bread-and-butter for a year until May takes on a different dimension once I've been granted a (temporary) leave of the intractable economic Machine.

I keep returning to the image I awake to each morning of Mount Hood rising over the Columbia Gorge. With the picture windows in the bedroom, the light wakes me at dawn; with the mountain centered in the middle window, the image is as static and memorable as a postcard. Each morning's dawn, however, recreates it in my eye's mind, as the snow-covered peak begins to gently differentiate itself against the dewy sky.

"All this is real: take note" (Maurice Blanchot, The Madness of the Day). [See below for full excerpt.]

Welteinbrennen: for some reason, I need to say this in German, though I know about 10 words beyond the numbers 1-10. "World-Branding." The branding of the World. Should have a French equivalent, for use by Baudrillard: "stigmatiser du monde" (doesn't that seem to have the slightly disdainful tone one would expect of a French theorist talking about globalization American-style?).

My point is that 1) "branding" touches upon the deepest part of our being-in-the-world; and 2) it is useful to have definitions that specify what it is within the specific contexts in which we operate. This image I receive every morning is both persistent and alive, and calls to me the promise of the day. It creates a memorable experience for me. You could say it makes me believe in the world, makes sense of my struggle, generates an understanding – that I can rely on the sun shining on the mountain every day. It's not the way I would convince my prospective client to hire me, though. This is why David Aaker's definition(s) are so useful (though personally I find Jean-Noel Kapferer more helpful).

I propose we look at branding using the same benchmarks at Richard Dawkins used for genetic replication, and that Susan Blackmore uses for memetic replication: fidelity, fecundity, and longevity. Here is an attempt at a definition: A brand is a memetic replicator used for the purposes of establishing or increasing a territory of economic interest, in ways that can be transmitted easily and effectively, and that last over a long period of time.


Once a small book for me that substituted for breathing, here an excerpt from the beginning.

From The Madness of the Day, by Maurice Blanchot, trans. Lydia Davis

I am not learned; I am not ignorant. I have known joys. That is saying too little: I am alive, and this life gives me the greatest pleasure. And what about death? When I die (perhaps any minute now), I will feel immense pleasure. I am not talking about the foretaste of death, which is stale and often disagreeable. Suffering dulls the senses. But this is the remarkable truth, and I am sure of it: I experience boundless pleasure in living, and I will take boundless satisfaction in dying.

I have wandered: I have gone from place to place. I have stayed in one place, lived in a single room. I have been poor, then richer, then poorer than many people. As a child I had great passions, and everything I wanted was given to me. My childhood has disappeared, my youth his behind me. It doesn't matter. I am happy about what has been. I am pleased by what is, and what is to come suits me well enough.

Is my life better than other peoples lives? Perhaps. I have a roof over my head and many do not. I do not have leprosy, I am not blind, I see the world—what extraordinary happiness! I see this day, and outside it there is nothing. Who could take that away from me? And when this day fades, I will fade along with it—a thought, a certainty, that enraptures me.

I have loved people. I have lost them. I went mad when that blow struck me, because it is hell. But there was no witness to my madness, my frenzy was not evident: only my innermost being was mad. Sometimes I became enraged. People would say to me, Why are you so calm? But I was scorched from head to foot; at night I would run through the streets and howl; during the day I would work calmly.

All this is real: take note.

This morning, waiting for Amery to get some pool water sampled, in the car with the top down and the heat beating, I was listening to the oldies station. Elvis was crooning "Are You Lonesome Tonight." Afterwards, I switched to a station playing a beautiful lute concerto, sun warm on my newly shaven head. A freight train 50 feet behind me approaches and speeds past, first with the screech and the whoosh of the engine, then with the pleasing rhythmic rattle of the cars passing, one after another. Each – concerto, sun on head, train – a distinct and understandable meme; and together I wonder whether they form a new meme, or memeplex. As the concerto comes to its conclusion, the last cars of this long train rattle and whisper into the distance.

Thinking of the difference with the city, I imagine how the totality and density of memes blurs the distinctions of these fatefully beautiful small complexes of memes such as I experienced this morning in The Dalles.

Time out from farm-pondering to get back to meme theory for a bit.

Our brains are unnaturally large relative to our body mass compared with other animals, a process which started once we learned how to imitate each other, i.e., once meme development began. One way to understand this is through the example of the peacock’s tail. Peahens prefer peacocks with large tails, although it requires a great cost with no survival advantage for the peacock. This way, the peahens will have a better chance of producing sons with large tails, which will be selected by peahens with a similar fetish to her own, with the final result of the peahen having more grandchildren. A bit circular, but this is a commonly used example of the Darwinian theory of sexual selection.

So is the human brain to be compared to the visually magnificent but cumbersome or even useless peacock tail? Perhaps, according to Blackmore. No doubt that memes conferred a survival advantage for early humans, and still do. But as we go from imitating a master fire-builder, to imitating the best imitator, to mating with the best imitator, our brains are growing larger to perpetuate memetic ability, not survival advantage. We’re dragging around a peacock’s tail full of memes, and are quite proud of it.

Proud of our style, proud of our Bach, proud of our widget factories, proud of our brands, proud of our websites and our interfaces, proud of our cities, proud of our toys and our dancing, proud of our gadgets, proud of our art. A big brain, indeed.


The dog, by the way, brought a dead deer's head up to the farm house a few days ago. I imagine she felt proud too.

Last July 4th, Amery and I were comfortably situated in our modern “live/work” loft in San Francisco, noting that the fireworks were happening but uninterested in going to the roof to watch. This holiday, in rural Washington, was different. Martha, a retired geologist down the road, was hosting her annual gathering, where many or most of the locals of the Lyle and High Prarie area congregate on the 4th.

When Sally was done with a hay sale, Amery and I gathered in her car to drive down. Along the way, I related a dream I had yesterday night. I’m struggling to relate the details of this resonant dream, but all I can come up with is [a horse] and [empathy]. I awoke with the desire to learn to ride a horse. Shortly after we arrive, I am introduced to Leslie, who runs the boarding place for horses. We were passing her place when I was relating my dream, but I missed it in my concentration. She has a friend who is going to Europe for 2 years, and for the cost of food and medicine, I could lease the horse.

Audrey comes on with her guitar in a bit, around the seated guests and with a beautiful old folk voice, singing classics. “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” is sung communally, along with an old Woody Guthrie song about the Columbia River. Here in the Gorge, the long freight trains still run along the river, creating a powerful Americana meme around industry and landscape.

The fireworks were to be in Hood River, across the river in Oregon. About an hour before sunset we drove down in a caravan of two, settling in a small White Salmon town parking area where people had congregated to view the fireworks across the Columbia. For the next hour and a half, we were huddled in the backs of our vehicles protecting ourselves from the setting off of fireworks by our neighbors. Two people were hit and a small fire was created in a confined dry grass area 10 feet from us. Following this militia-like display of Roman Candles and the like, the state-sanctioned performance began with the comfortable distant familiarity of ritual retinal stimulation. We sped off not soon enough following the finale.

On the way home, our 6-year old niece comments that she could see the USA in some of the fireworks. I challenged her by saying I saw brown hills, green grass, and white clouds, but not the colors she was referring to. She quickly replied (she’s not adverse to correcting with the postscript “Stupid!”) that it refers to the colors of the American flag. Just checking. Memetic transmission successful.

Down the road on the way home we see a fire, a real one just off the highway next to us, spreading up the 500 ft. hill, conveyed by wind and dry grass. The hill was on fire! We drive back to the ranch, avoiding a few porcupines on our way, so James can be available for firefighting if he is called.

Thus ends the 225th anniversary of Independence Day, an occasion for re-meme-brance.

Last night, in bed under a full moon, the coyotes howl, an eerie sound. To follow, the dogs barking meaningful barks and wails. Stirring in the house, Amery leaves the bed and joins her sister, yelping "Chocolate!" "Freckles!", protecting the dogs protecting us.

I've never seen so many deer in my life. This evening, journeying through the hay fields with the family in the Jeep, every direction were deer in groups of two to ten. There used to be cougars in the hills, but they were hunted off along with most of the bobcats. They both fed on coyotes, who fed on deer. Since coyotes feed on farm animals, they've taken a hit too, hence the deer. In October, hunting begins, but won't have much effect on the number of deer: they just hide away a while, back for the winter.

Driving on the recently harvested winrows of hay over the rolling acres; then watching the telephone wires on the dirt highway rolling with the rows; and the clouds hanging as usual over Mount Adams in long, long rows horizontal across the sky – brought back a comment Jeff made to me a little while ago about a farmer named Philo Farnsworth in 1922, reflecting on the pattern he was making in the field with mule and plow, coming up with the idea of television.

Sunday, July 1
Yesterday, Tati lost her balloon, and cried. She had kept it for a few hours, and at a rest stop she opened the window and out it flew. She was devastated; it was surprising to see such an effect upon her. Why a balloon? (I don’t remember, but I imagine I cried at a lost balloon at least once.)

She finally lost her front tooth today, and will wait upon the tooth fairy tonight.

Tati has been very excitable recently. I think she is afraid of losing us, Amery and myself. We aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so there isn’t any worry.

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being"....We’re all afraid of losing that, and all of us succumb.

We are at the coast now, overlooking from a height a large swath of the Pacific. From this view, the Earth begins to seem a planet, the ocean an impenetrable skin. There is desire to comprehend; some wall separates what I know of the world from what I can’t. The longing I imagine to be a death wish, in the finality of nature’s refusal to be utterly and completely understandable. I posit the separation of Matter and Spirit: is to be solely Matter, in the process of disintegration after death, to be at one with nature, and thus co-comprehensible with it? Is Spirit, then, the comprehending, the comprehensiveness?

The coast seems the dividing line between the world of memes and the non-memetic. There are no memes in the ocean. My pondering and positing seem to create the memes that, in any event, always reside on this side, not “out there,” in the region I’ll never fully comprehend.

This morning, waking up to the planet’s wet surface with a cup of coffee in hand, I notice far on the horizon a tiny irregularity. I pick up the binoculars to check it out. All I discern is a still-tiny form, but in a rectangular shape. It confuses me. Is it an island or a ship? It seems too regular shaped for an island, but I can’t make out a control tower that would make it seem a ship. I look again and it has moved relative to the Firs next to us that now obscure it. Now it is “ship.” A minute ago it was a rectangle floating on formless expanse. Geomemetry.

Sally and Tati approached us from her car, parked in the field near the equipment graveyard. Said she scared herself, hearing some shaking she thought was a rattlesnake. Ended up being stuff she was carrying in her MoMA bag, which she picked up in New York when I was working there. The bag originally held some shiny design object or art book, I imagine.

Yesterday began with stories and ended with stories. In the morning, we went to drop off Tati at her other grandmothers', Grammy Donna, and ended up talking with her for some time. She's an old family friend and hasn't seen Amery in years. She was in the midst of cleaning house to host the local historical society today: a researcher from a Portland-area university has been looking up obituaries from names gathered from local cemeteries, and he was going to present his findings for this area. Sally is the secretary of the society, so she's been busy writing the minutes in the midst of the farming.

At 6:30 we arranged to go look at some Nubian goats over at Rebecca and Paul's ranch. When we first moved back West, we visited a Sonoma County winery in California that had a few young Nubian kids, and sold a delicious cheese in olive oil. They are beautiful goats. Rebecca, walking with crutches, met us near the car, rescuing us from their barking Australian Blueheeler. She told us what happened to her when she tried to cross a stream at the beach. It was pretty bad – happened back in February, and she's still on crutches. Said it was a gloomy day, but pleasingly moist coming from the prarie, with lots of rain clouds in the sky. She was trapped in the sand waiting for the EMTs to get her out and to the hospital and feeling no pain, but with a torniquet around her leg under her knee. In the midst of all these rain clouds that were rushing through the sky, there was one small, beautiful white cloud just overhead and stationary that looked like an angel, keeeping her attention. All around her were the EMTs telling her "I'm Charles and I'm here to keep you comfortable" and the like, and each one had an uncanny resemblance to someone she knew well. As she was being brought to the ambulance she remarked on the cloud to her daughter, who had been seeing the same thing.

We spent over 2 hours at her goat ranch, getting the story on each one of her goats, over 100 in all. It was pure transmission of her lifetime of goat-raising. We talked a bit of the price to buy a pair, and Sally negotiated a bit on the hay she was selling for the goats, generally of bad quality as it contained "goat grass," but obviously pleasing to goats. Leaving, Rebecca offered to give us some of her extra milk, so Amery and I could experiment making cheese.

Actions around here are encircled by stories, maybe even the pretext for them.

Been brooding today. Trying to figure out what's next. Many, many possibilities, but nature offers resistance and time is an aperture allowing only so much to pass through. Comparisons with yesterday's hen are apt, but I don't plan on coming to the same end (she had to be put down yesterday, with her egg still half delivered).

Just returned from the chicken barn. Sally and Tati have five chickens, which produce green or pink eggs that we eat or they sometimes sell for a buck or two per dozen. One hen has been trying to push an egg out of her for three days; I went to the barn to help Sally try to help the hen. We thought of resting her in warm soapy water with a little hydrogen peroxide – that at least cleaned up the festering a little and maybe provided some lubrication. She seemed to like it, after an initial fluster. Half the egg is still inside (we broke it hoping that it might relieve a little tension); we'll leave her for a while and call the vet tomorrow if need be.

Yesterday, Amery and I drove the '55 Chevy flatbed out to the fields, to follow around Steve as he picked up small stacks of hay, placed them on the truck bed, and reconstructed them into large stacks. There are 10 bales per stack lying horizontal in the field; the grappler on the Case backhoe grabs them from above, and places 1 on top of the other, reaching a height of 10 bales high, 100 per stack. We place 4 of these together tightly, so the sun won't dry out the edges, making it more scrumptious for the cattle. It was a bit inefficient for both of us to go out, but I was tired from hand-stacking bales the day before, and it was nice to be alone together in the old truck. Amery brought a New Yorker with her to read, I brought a camera. I got out to take pictures of the Olin House in the distance on the prarie, revelling in the land and space. When I returned to the Chevy, I saw the cover of the The New Yorker: a couple with a realtor standing on the balcony of a Manhattan apartment. The couple are beaming with delight at the view; of course it is obscured every which way with skyscrapers, but one tiny slice remains in the far distance that they are obviously fixated on, of a boat on the water next to a beach. It's not like that here.

There is a texture to the farm that is distinct from what I've known. Like now, as I look out the picture window facing Mt. Hood, the dog Chocolate, who has been sleeping on the mound of dirt in front of me, has decided to stretch. Nothing very unusual in that, except that she is within this extraordinary framed landscape in front of me; that she and her sister Freckles have always been kept outside; and that they have such a swath of land to roam. As often as not they are there to greet you at the house when you return from the fields or from town, friendly dogs who always approach together,seeking the same thing, which is to say attention. They come up to you wagging their tales and lifting their heads towards you. One makes it first, the other follows and positions herself adjacent, like a Siamese twin. They seldom bark, the are preternaturally quiet: every bark has meaning. When going on walks they gladly join you uninvited. The other night, walking from the main house to Sally's (which isn't far), it was pitch black, couldn't see a thing. We were feeling the gravel under our feet to navigate. Shortly we were startled by the feel of silent flesh along our thighs. It could have been anything, but we figured it was Chocolate and Freckles. I don't know if they made a decision to each cover one of us, but they walked closely with us up the short hill, advancing beyond us as we got closer, turning the automatic garage lights on to our delight.

There are many other animal displays as well, though more wild of course. Deer are all over: when driving on the highways or on the John Deere raking, or in the barn we were cleaning yesterday before stacking the hay, where they had made home. Always, hawks gliding the sky, especially when raking or swathing. Yesterday, Amery was out in the hay fields with Steve, a farmhand. He was driving as he noticed a hawk descending towards him, shooting right past his face before plucking a mouse out of the field in front of him.

There are little birds, I forget their names, who make their nests in the swathed hay, and as you are raking you need be careful not to rake them over. As you approach, the adult birds start flying around, with their children struggling awkwardly to get out of danger, only partially flying and with a lot of flapping. There are rattlesnakes to be aware of, and other less venemous snakes as well. Tom, Amery and Sally's father and chief farmer among us, pulled a skin out of the small pool next to the house, looked like a rattler but could have been a bull snake. Around dusk last night, five to ten yards beyond our window a coyote stalked past. There are groups of ants near the door handle into the garden, bees vying to get into the tractor cabin, mice in the ceiling or seats of some of the old trucks, holes where gophers are, enough earthworms to suggest the idea of selling them, owls and bats, and of course, cougars (though no one has spotted one yet).

There are stories, many of them, giving a dense and boisterous texture of remembrances to the farm: of fires, floods, crashes, encounters with wildlife and crazy neighbors, to name a few. There are trucks too, from '55 flatbeds to newer dumptrucks, a plethora, but more finite in number than the stories.

BW Online | June 25, 2001 | Table: The Complete List of 2001 Winners

When I wake up in the morning, sometimes at dawn, through the picture window facing our bed I can see a miraculous view: the high prarie, wheat field in foreground, with rolling hills gently sloping down to to the Columbia River Gorge. Beyond the Gorge sits an impressive, solitary, and snow-covered Mount Hood rising beyond. At first dawn, the view is a soft blur with the mountain intimately differentiating itself; a little later the colored filters of the sunrise begin to reflect on its snow. Now, if my Powerbook monitor didn't directly obscure it, I could see Mount Hood standing bright white against the morning sky. We have arrived at the farm, following our 1300 mile trek up the coast from LA.

Here's a painting, made from approximately the same distance to the mountain as we are at the farm.

On our first walk, we experience the primal brand violation: a small herd of a neighbor's cows eating our newly planted alfalfa. Before I know it, my wife goes chasing after the cows, scaring the cows away (Amery spent most of her adult years working in the higher echelons of fashion, so this is an eyeopener for me). Shortly Sally, my wife's sister comes racing along on the 4-wheeler scooter, her daughter Tati in tow hugging her back. "Did you catch the brand?" she asks. We didn't, so there is no way of knowing whose they are. I didn't know we'd be chasing brands on our first day.

The hay harvest began before we got here. I was already in the tractor the afternoon after we arrived. Sally does the swathing, laying the hay in rows before it blooms. Once the hay has "cured," my role is raking, combining two gentle rows into a larger and taller braid. Then James, Amery's youngest brother, comes along with the baler around 2 or 3am (catching the dew), collecting the braided hay into bales and depositing them back on the ground in one layer of 12, stopping around noon when the dew dries up. Later, someone will come and stack the layers together, so large cubes of baled hay stand out in the distance. Finally these stacks are placed on the truck's flatbed, to be delivered to the next customer in batches of 1 ton (20 bales) or more. All of this can be seen in its different phases in different places on the farm.

There's been a drought this year, so the yield is low and the prices are–thankfully–high. Hopefully the farm will make money from this harvest, but it is uncertain yet. The drought has been good in one respect: this is only the second year the farm has switched to hay, and new customers are calling looking for this scarce commodity. Hopefully these customers will call back next year, when hay might be in greater supply.

Would I have thought I'd find myself in a tractor now, when I was in New York, for instance? I remember Amery and I went to the Smithsonian National Museum of Design on 92nd Street to see the Henry Dreyfuss retrospective. Towards the end of the exhibit, on its own pedestal, was Dreyfuss' redesign of the John Deere tractor. Not only did he strengthen the John Deere brand through stylistic development, more importantly he placed brand recognition where farmers valued it most, namely in the redesign of the seat where the farmer spends much of his time. This was the first thing Sally pointed out to me during my initial orientation to the tractor, my current workplace.

Here's a site I discovered called Brand Genetics that wraps its branding practice within the mystique of the science of memetics.

The "sabbatical" has begun. All our things are in storage, except the boxes we sent to the farm. We are in LA now, flying to Aspen for the design conference next week, and then begin our drive up the coast from LA to the Washington border to arrive mid-June.

The first thing we did after closing up in San Francisco is to spend a day in Napa, taking a friend for her birthday to the Di Rosa Foundation, an art/nature preserve in southern Napa which is the home to a collector's 1000+ art objects, the vast majority from the San Francisco Bay Area. There is no label info for any of the artworks (though it can be found somewhere in each room in a book), so the viewing experience is relegated to the visual, and more importantly for me, becomes a collective experience of the Bay Area meme.

Why do certain areas produce visual art over time that revolve around similar artistic strategies? Why are there movements in art on an international scale that have some cohesive homogeneity for a particular time? Two separate questions, two angles on the same memetic phenonemon.

I remember being in Basel, Switzerland for the first time, and discovering the vibrant art scene there (not during the annual fair). The Kunsthalle was showing a regional Trienalle (Basel, plus two cities near it in France and Germany). I had been at the time at the bottom of an S-curve in my attention and interest in contemporary art; and my wanderings to its many galleries and museum opened me to a powerful experience of art, place, and time, the understanding that certain kinds of art thrives in certain kinds of places, at specific times or traversing time. What artistic memes "rise to the top" in particular places? What relation does a regional cohesiveness have to an international memepool of art? If memes are primarily about the human ability to imitate, then at what point does the imitation which leads to regional cohesiveness batter against the rigorous survival standards of the International Art Meme? And, like, where is individuality in all this memetic posturing?

Off to see a few Nanni Moretti films at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

I realize I've been playing pretty fast and loose with these so-called "memes." It's a nice catch-all for anything that is in any way remotely meaningful, right? I'm sure Richard Dawkins, Susan Blackmore et.al. would be cringing. And yet, maybe there is something there, and something moreover that could be illuminating for me personally and for others (like you).

Naomi S. suggested the connection between "memery" and "memory." All the while I was trying to mine the connection "creamery" and "memery," neglecting this more obvious association evident in my various recollections.

OK, for some mimetic housekeeping:
Don't you like this "Ford Galaxy" meme? It really does speak to the endurance of brands, how the name of a car can get folded into a story of sightings and a confluence of births and deaths. Moreover, it is the activity of memes within me, trying to make sense of my life, grasping at straws to create significance. Anything can be grist for the meme-mill, no matter how mundane or profound.

One of my favorite scenes in cinema is in Godard's Alphaville, when Detective Lemmy Caution, trekking through space at some specified warp speed, is seen cruising the freeway in his 60s American sedan (I think a Nova, not a Galaxy, but it could be a Rambler). One review of the film reveals that Godard initially wanted to name the film "Tarzan vs. IBM." If *that* doesn't suggest a doctoral dissertation in Memery, I don't know what does. (Godard's later films, which I love, capture fragments so well, reconstructing visual, auditory, and musical bits into concertos of memes.)

A few recommendations: first, IntellectualCapital.org, a small site that is probably inert now, unfortunately. A very clear overview of intangible assets in business.

Next, what's come to be my favorite newspaper online: the International Herald Tribune, designed by John Weir, a one- or two-person web design shop in San Francisco. An example of a website taking cues, in the most productive way, from the way people actually read newspapers (who knows? – a web purist might disagree.) Nice personalization, and check out the way you can clip articles, especially from the article index page. The only downside I've discovered is article loading time, but once they load, the individual pages load instantly. Great web design of a great newspaper.

There was a problem with the server for the last several days; hence, no memes from me. Eventually, I'll redesign this page and host it elsewhere, but for now it's free on BLOGGER.

Today's the beginning of packing, stage 2. We are on the road as of May 30.

Another sister calls to wish me a happy birthday. I speak to both of my nephews: Sam, the one whose birthday is October 4, then his younger brother Jason. Jason tells me his cat Lucy was just put to sleep, on my birthday. This is beginning to be a story of cats.

My sister just emailed me to wish me a happy birthday, after my last post. She also mentioned her cats were born today too. So that's two cats, a dog, and me. And Miles.

Reflections of the Black Galaxy...

Today's my birthday: 1 year to the day we arrived back in San Francisco "for good." Twenty-three years to the day (now 24) that I first arrived in Berkeley in my grandmother's old baby blue '66 Ford Galaxy, $600 in pocket. Got a place on Dwight and Telegraph (didn't know about first and last month rent requirements). By October I had moved to San Francisco, sharing a place for $55 per month.

The day Amery and I arrived last year we spent looking for a parking space. Now (not today, my wife is giving me my one-day birthday reprieve) we are packing to leave.

I still see the old Galaxy 500 around San Francisco. I recognize it because I sold it to a co-worker shortly after I arrived for $200. He painted it jet black. There aren't too many jet black Galaxies around, at least within the 49 square miles of San Francisco. Funny how a car can indicate a history of sorts: on the way West last year, we stopped in Colorado Springs to visit a friend, and parked our new Miata in front of a restaurant we were visiting. In the same lot was a '66 Ford Galaxy, baby blue. Indeed uncanny, seemed to me.

My grandmother's birthday was May 24, a day before mine. It was also Pokey's birthday, our beloved and reviled basset hound. It's also Bob Dylan's, which is a day before Miles Davis', also my own, which presumably was the day Beethoven finished writing his Ninth Symphony. There you have it.

More dates: two of my sisters were born on October 4, five years apart. Many years later my nephew, of another sister, was born on October 4. Then I met my future wife and found out her grammy was born October 4. (I never met her grammy. She was 99 and living in San Francisco when we were in New York, and she passed away before we had a chance to meet.)

I'm not yet clear on what how these date configurations are memes, or if in fact it has anything to do with memes. Here is a definite meme related to astrology: "as above, so below." A world view of the pre-scientific era, the correspondance of the heavens to earth. Also, characteristic Number One of memes, according to Susan Blackmore: imitation. As above, so below. Birds might be guided by the heavens in their migrations, but humans create world views and patterns of behavior by the observation of the stars. Or did, anyway.

Last night our first going-away party. Amery sad at leaving our many friends for the summer. We'll be back.

Well, now that I started my blog I guess I have to feed it.

Today's our 2nd anniversary, Amery and myself. We are having a gathering at the Bay View Boat Club, but not for that. Originally it was meant to be a "solar midpoint" birthday, celebrating both mine and our friend Rosa's birthday, on the day halfway between them. Also, it is a chance to get together with friends old and new before moving away for the summer. So we planned it for today, and after sending out the email invitation, we both realized it was our anniversary. What is interesting is that Rosa was the person who introduced us, and created the sacred circle for our wedding ceremony. So the circle turns. Also this day is the 2nd anniversary of Kali and Rich, two friends from graduate school living in Minneapolis.

I could mention other date "coincidences", but maybe I'll just try to call it the "date meme." When dates begin to reveal themselves not simply as calendar page turners, but as aspects of our embeddedness in a social or spiritual matrix, they take on the character of memes.


Rick Poyner, the design critic and former editor of Eye magazine from London, spoke at Yerba Buena last night, part of an AIGA lecture series. Spoke about six vices and six virtues in graphic design. It was a compelling moral rant against excess, corporatism, cheap radicalism, et.al., and preaching the virtues of simplicity and refusing to play the game, not working for the giant. The kind of stuff I could easily agree to, if it were so simple. A good time for me to hear it, having left a Big Five consulting firm and headed up to the farm to do...what? We'll see. Maybe something simple.

But is life that simple? For the critic, it is useful to set up a binary opposition (virtue/vice) – in the space between them there is much to discuss, and criticize. But aren't designers memefiers, very good at making things stick, and survive? Rick's point is for designers to choose what they want to survive, given their talent for making things (the good and the bad, and even the ugly) stick. I remember reading the Italian architecture historiographer Manfredo Tafuri in the 80s, making the point that architecture from the beginning of its origins is about power, its discourse is the discourse of power. Designers need to navigate this terrain, not escape from it. Designing a brand rather than a brochure is like designing a skyscraper rather than a trade booth. Make it compelling, and interesting, and habitable for humanity. Signs + power = memes.