squashblossom

amy casey & zhou fan

2011-07-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

soon

2011-06-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

hesitant only
out of habit

you have caught me

wanting to bend

4/21/11

2011-04-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

sometimes i let the cards breathe for me
the soothsayers woo me
through winds & bends & whines
& sometimes sameness
stretches of sameness
should render perfection

i am humbled to a mumble
words still loose like my post baby belly
watching that, MY, boy grow
one
inch
at
a
time

i have not zeroed out yet
so the words have nowhere to come from
& so many days now,
i let the cards speak for me
& the tiny pictures contain me
tiny tarot mirrors

hafiz

2011-03-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

SOME FILL WITH EACH GOOD RAIN

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.

In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,

That “love” is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,

Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife

Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,

Others are far, far too deep
For that.

2011-03-24T21:53:00.001-07:00

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Anais Nin

2011-03-23T22:30:00.001-07:00

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

Anais Nin

2011-03-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

i painted today, the first time in a long while. thank goddess.

its time for a renaissance - i dont see women fixing each others hair, mending clothes, sewing dolls for their babies, baking bread for their families (& neighbors). there are hidden pricey 'studios' where artists make things to sell for way too much. but not the practical making & doting & crafting out in the sun in the middle of the day. there are mom bloggers. im one. & they are documenting like mad this stage & phase & product & somr tip on how to feel like a 'woman'. hmmm. what does that mean? we are extended so far beyond the primal parts & instincts - stretched into unrecognizable manequin like consuming creatures, like human world ikea. a little put together matchy plastic made in china showroom of families. harsh? hardly. honest, pushy now - pushing keys like i wish i could push people back into themselves. & they would say, "where am i?" you are here. inside yourself. somewhere between your vagina & your heart & your brain & god. your lung, thats you. your liver, thats you. your kidney- you. your blood- you are nothing without it, want to worship something? start here, in the mystery. not in china in a handbag

2010-03-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZi1nfEcUy8&feature=youtube_gdata

2010-03-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

the haze
that plays
about my head

a halo
tiny atmosphere
has suspended me in orbit

my soul
at the center
keeping me closer than ever

i love marc chagall

2010-02-25T18:56:00.001-08:00

roses that by d.a . levy

2010-02-15T22:16:00.000-08:00

the warrior by hafiz

2010-02-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

The warriors tame
The beasts in their past
So that the night's hoofs
Can no longer break the jeweled vision
In the heart.

The intelligent and the brave
Open every closet in the future and evict
All the mind's ghosts who have the bad habit
Of barfing everywhere.

For a long time the Universe
Has been germinating in your spine

But only a Pir* has the talent,
the courage to slay
The past-giant, the future-anxieties.

The warrior
Wisely sits in a circle
With other men
Gathering the strength to unmask
Himself,

Then
Sits, giving.
Like a great illumined planet on
The
Earth.

*Persian: Saint

edward estlin cummings, extraordinaire

2009-06-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear, and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e.e cummings

a previously posted poem & a recent response from my sister

2009-06-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

committed to composure
ducts dry
super glue if i have to

connected to the divine
eyes focused
following the line
of ethereal thread

mending the cardiectomy

softened to reason
exhaling the shapes
not suited for this frame

staggering decisiveness-
pointed beauty
surfaces as revelation

reflections of wiser women
replace me
suggestions of wiser words
arrest me

slowed to stillpoint
smeared lines clear
refining the essence
of rehearsed conversations

smeared lines clear-
conscious
of the heart as nucleus
of the soul

my sister's response:

"i think the damage done to us as children - as young women - as women - wreaks such silent havoc that we must rage against a wicked fate of ever doubting ourselves, against a hollow doom of ever fearing a black, evasive, unseen horror. and maybe we never fully win the battle, but we can hold our ground, even gain some as we push back and stake claim to ourselves.

i see your piece is about accepting the close of a relationship with just one man, but the past has a way of corrupting our sense of self beyond a single relationship, of muddying what should be clear and simple. i wish you the strength to let yourself go. to go and do and breathe and live beyond ______ and beyond any past that makes letting go seem too scary, too hard, too much."

new dan rossen// judee sill cover

2009-06-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/Daniel%20Rossen%20-%20Waterfall.mp3

thanks laura

2009-06-15T22:32:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love Sylvia Plath.
Why, oh why did she have to die
before her time?

How is it that
a woman you never knew
could know so much about you?

Soliloquy of a Solipsist
By Sylvia Plath

I?
I walk alone;
The midnight street
Spins itself from under my feet;
When my eyes shut
These dreaming houses all snuff out;
Through a whim of mine
Over gables the moon's celestial onion
Hangs high.

I
Make houses shrink
And trees diminish
By going far; my looks leash
Dangles the puppet-people
Who, unaware how they dwindle,
Laugh, kiss, get drunk,
Nor guess that if I chose to blink
They die.

I
When in good humor,
Give grass its green
Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun
With gold;
Yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold
Absolute power
To boycott any color and forbid any flower
To be.

I
Know you appear
Vivid at my side,
Denying you sprang out of my head,
Claiming you feel
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,
Though it's quite clear
All your beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,
From me.

Posted by laurajfromthabay at 7:07 PM 0

tiny gods by HAFIZ

2009-06-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

some gods say, the tiny ones,
"I am not here in your vibrant, moist lips
That need to beach themselves upon
The golden shore of a
Naked body."

Some gods say, "I am not
The scarred yearning in the unrequited soul;
I am not the blushing cheek
Of every star and
Planet-

I am not the applauding Chef
Of those precious secretions that can distill
The whole mind into a perfect wincing jewel, if only
For a moment;
Nor do I reside in every pile of sweet warm dung
Born of earth's
Gratuity."

Some gods say, the ones we need to hang,
"Your mouth is not designed to know His,
Love was not born to consume
The luminous
Realms."

Dear ones,
Beware of the tiny gods frightened men
Create

To bring an anaesthetic relief
To their sad
Days.

2009-05-28T23:56:00.001-07:00

art by henry gunderson

2009-05-28T23:28:00.000-07:00

IKEBANA***** i think i'll try to make these with fabric, like stuffed animal flowers

2009-05-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

Kakeizu for the arrangement shown on the left
(copyright Sogetsukai Foundation). The photo shows the frontal view as in the illustration.

IKEBANA is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It is more than simply putting flowers in a container. It is a disciplined art form in which the arrangement is a living thing where nature and humanity are brought together. It is steeped in the philosophy of developing a closeness with nature.

As is true of all other arts, IKEBANA is creative expression within certain rules of construction. Its materials are living branches, leaves, grasses, and blossoms. Its heart is the beauty resulting from color combinations, natural shapes, graceful lines, and the meaning latent in the total form of the arrangement. IKEBANA is, therefore, much more than mere floral decoration.

The growing appreciation of Japanese art and architecture in the West has extended to the Japanese way with flowers. IKEBANA is an art, in the same sense that painting and sculpture are arts. It has a recorded history; it is backed up by articulate theories; and it is concerned with creativity. In Japan, flower arrangements are used as decorations on a level with paintings and other art objects.
IKEBANA and the Japanese love of nature
The remarkably high development of floral art in Japan can be attributed to the Japanese love of nature. People in all countries appreciate natural beauty, but in Japan, the appreciation amounts almost to a religion. The Japanese have always felt a strong bond of intimacy with their natural surroundings, and even in contemporary concrete-and-asphalt urban complexes, they display a remarkably strong desire to have a bit of nature near them. Foreign visitors to Tokyo are often surprised to notice that their taxi driver has hung a little vase with a flower or two at the edge of the windshield. The Japanese house that does not at all times contain some sort of floral arrangement is rare indeed.

Nature is always changing. Plants grow and put forth leaves, flowers bloom, and berries are borne regularly and repeatedly throughout the seasons. Nature has its own rhythm and order. The awareness of this is the first step in involving oneself in IKEBANA.

In principle, IKEBANA aims not at bringing a finite piece of nature into the house, but rather at suggesting the whole of nature, by creating a link between the indoors and the outdoors. This is why arrangers are likely to use several different types of plants in a single arrangement, and to give prominence to leaves and flowerless branches as well as blossoms. Even when a single type of flower is used, an attempt is made to bring out its full implications as a symbol of nature.

Do men also do IKEBANA?
Both men and women study this art form. Indeed, in the past, IKEBANA was considered an appropriate pastime for even the toughest samurai. Currently, the leading flower arrangers are, for the most part, men. IKEBANA is not only an art, but an occupation for men and women alike.
Is IKEBANA difficult?
To say that IKEBANA is a full-fledged art does not mean that it is esoteric. The greatest creations in the field are apt to be made by the most highly skilled experts, but, as in painting and sculpture, there is plenty of room for amateurs. Almost anyone with a little time and inclination can acquire sufficient skill to make beautiful arrangements. Still, as in the other arts, it is necessary to master certain fundamental techniques before proceeding to free creation.

Spiritual aspects of IKEBANA
Many practitioners of IKEBANA feel that the spiritual aspect of IKEBANA is very important. One becomes quiet when one practices IKEBANA. It helps you to live "in the moment" and to appreciate things in nature that previously had seemed insignificant. One becomes more patient and tolerant of differences, not only in nature, but more generally in other people. IKEBANA can inspire you to identify with beauty in all art forms -- painting, music, etc., and to always expect the best in yourself.

What are IKEBANA arrangements made Of?
The varying forms of IKEBANA share certain common features, regardless of the period or school. Any plant material -- branches, leaves, grasses, moss, and fruit -- may be used, as well as flowers. Withered leaves, seed pods, and buds are valued as highly as flowers in full bloom.

Whether a work is composed of only one kind of material or of many different kinds of materials, the selection of each element in the arrangement demands an artistic eye. An arranger with considerable technical skill combines materials to create a kind of beauty that cannot be found in nature.
How is IKEBANA different from FLOWER ARRANGEMENT?
What distinguishes IKEBANA from other approaches such as "flower arrangement" is its asymmetrical form and the use of empty space as an essential feature of the composition. A sense of harmony among the materials, the container, and the setting is also crucial. These are characteristics of aesthetics that IKEBANA shares with traditional Japanese paintings, gardens, architecture, and design.

2009-05-23T22:47:00.000-07:00

Damon Soule Interview
Written by Trippe
Tuesday, 21 April 2009

We welcome this San Francisco legend back after some time spent in NYC and Portland. His show Amused Loon ran at Joshua Liner in NYC last October and since has been working towards Same Loud No which opens May 7th at Fecal Face Dot Gallery. Damon hasn't shown in San Francisco for a few years... We catch up with the cofounder of the now defunct FIT skateboards and sample the upcoming show.

So first off you're about to open "Same Loud No" at Fecal Face Dot Gallery on May 7th. Tell us a bit about the show.

Yeah... ummm. There seem to be a lot of squares. There is a piece about prime numbers and one about the golden ratio as it relates to nocturnal birds of prey. to be honest I'm not quite sure why. I was having these crazy dreams. it's kind of hard to explain but I was having multiple dreams at the same time but they were contained in these boxes and I was moving from dream to dream or box to box. It was very strange.

You lived in San Francisco for a long time before moving to NYC and then to Portland. When was the last time you showed in San Francisco...? Or shit, when was the last time you were even here?

I was in SF for new years a year and a half ago. The last time I showed there was several years ago in a group show with Mars and Oliver Vernon at White Walls. So it's been a minute.

I know you've been in NYC for the last month working on the show at a friend's studio. How did that go for you? Isn't hard to stay focused in the Big Apple with so much going on... or does that help your work?

Yeah I'm still here in NY. It can be a little distracting at times but I get pretty focused when I'm in the groove. When I'm working I'm not that into socializing.

How is NYC these days? What were you getting into?

To be honest the last few weeks have been pretty rough. I have this weird thing called cluster headaches. They are excruciatingly painful headaches behind my right eye and temple. I get 1 to 3 of them every day and they last anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. Usually the same time each day. It will go on like that for a couple of months and than inexplicably disappear as suddenly as they appeared for as long as a year. It's very odd. It's been happening since my late teens. At any rate I'm right in the middle of a cycle now and it sucks. I'm hoping it goes away before I get out to SF for the show. I can't drink at all because it will trigger a headache.

Your previous work has some similar elements as your friends work Mars-1. How do you see your work aligning with his or not?

Yeah it's true there are definitely similar elements. I can remember one time we hadn't seen each others new work for over a year and we had this show together and when we were unpacking the work we had all these new things in our work that were really similar. We were just laughing like what the fuck, "Get outta my head"... At the same time though I think we have very different ideas. Before we met we were both fans of each others stuff. At that time we were both doing a lot of robots and that kind of sci-fi figurative stuff so in a way we kind of started from the same place. We kind of have this little group that borrows from each other unashamedly. Me, Mario, Nome, David Lee, Oliver. I don't think it's a secret, it's clearly there but ultimately I think our work is unique and stands on its own.

We met like back in 1998 when you did all the graphics for FIT Skateboards and I was working on their video... Damn, that was a long time ago... Anyway, what was the SF art scene like back then? What were you getting into?

Yeah those were great times. I dropped out of SFAI to do that. Once FIT was over I decided to go full steam into doing my own shit. At that point there weren't a whole lot of galleries to show at, but there were more and more of us producing work and people interested in seeing it. It was pretty exciting seeing things grow organically.

What brought you to SF to begin with?

Well I grew up in New Orleans but when I was 16 I got into some trouble and went to live with my mom who had moved to Colorado Springs. There was a huge skate scene there and I just bummed around with my buddies there for a couple of years. A bunch of people I knew had moved to SF and the place just sounded exciting. One weekend a couple of my friends were back in Colorado visiting and I just asked if I could get a ride back with them. I left almost everything I had and came out there.

You mentioned in a previous interview that Yoko Ono is one of your top 5 favorite artists. Do you think her relationship with Lennon hurt or helped her art career?

The truth is I just said the first five names that came to mind. It's really hard to have a few favorites when you think of all the artists that have ever lived. But to answer your question, I think her association helped by giving her a lot more notoriety but at the same time it kind of turned her into a punch line. It's unfortunate because she has done some really interesting things.

There seems to be some time in your career where you weren't producing as much work after you left SF (or maybe you were and we missed it)... If you weren't, what were you up to?

I was definitely still working. I think I was just drawing more. Also when I was in SF I was doing like a new show every month for years and when I left I decided to slow it down a bit and spend more time on less work. I only do 1 or 2 shows a year instead of 12. If you miss one or two it would seem like I quit making stuff.

Tell us about your show at Joshua Liner last fall.

Most of my work was about emergent complexity, which is something I was reading as much about as I could find.

Favorite thing you came across this year?

Ohh, that's hard. Fried chicken in a soda cup.

---
Damon Soule - Same Loud No
Opening: Thurs. May 7, '09 (6-9pm)
Fecal Face Dot Gallery
66 Gough St. @Market

damon soule

2009-05-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

2009-05-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

i am soul searching more intensely than ever before. i am quite sure it shows in my eyes, i have completely alchemized to water in order to find the path of least resistance-- surely that is the way towards truth. man struggles with truth, but truth is intrinsically gentle, it just is. that is the light i'm squinting to see. i am having to lose focus of everything else. its scary. its a test. because if i have truly integrated all the info & experience i've sought out then i should use it now, have it now. it should all be what propels me over this hurdle right?

in my heart of hearts i have always craved the contemplative lifestyle. i am reinforced by the many writers & thinkers & sages who have pursued an inward path of contemplation. what i am missing is a grounding force, a guardian, an anchor that supports & understands, nurtures & compliments this strut with daily support & physical love. its my only point of surrender- the submiss to love. i thank god for that weakness, its how i feel most like a woman

2009-05-17T22:16:00.001-07:00

shortys

2009-05-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

read song of songs at 15
& decided spiritual poetry
sung truth like a paper choir

**

the round cards summon my thoughts
i reply, fingers agile as cats
flipping predictions

**

materialism
overconsumption
overpopulation

deducing
reducing heat
of boiled over thoughts
sad to see the energy of
goddess drained
cleaning up messes.
we forget we are guests

big boys keep it green

2009-04-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

EPA Unveils Top 50 U.S. Green Power Purchasers

EPA released a list on Monday of the nation's top green power purchasers. The list is led by Intel Corporation, PepsiCo, Kohl's Department Stores, Dell Inc., Whole Foods Market, The Pepsi Bottling Group, Inc., Johnson & Johnson, U.S. Air Force, Cisco Systems, Inc. and the City of Houston. The nation’s top 50 purchasers are buying more than 11 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) that would be produced from the electricity use of more than 1.1 million average American homes.

ADVERTISEMENT

For the second year in a row, Intel Corporation is the nation's largest single purchaser of green power with purchases of more than 1.3 billion kWh of green power per year. This corresponds to CO2 emissions from the electricity use of nearly 130,000 average American homes.

Kohl’s who more than doubled their green power purchase secured a No. 3 spot on the National Top 50 list. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Dannon, Sony DADC and Motorola for the first time appeared on the National Top 50 list securing the No. 15, No. 33, No. 40 and No. 44 spots, respectively.

EPA’s Green Power Partnership works with more than 1,000 partner organizations to voluntarily purchase green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use. Overall, EPA Green Power Partners are buying more than 16 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to the CO2 emissions from electricity use of more than 1.5 million American homes.

Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas, and low-impact hydropower. Green power electricity generates less pollution than conventional power and produces no net increase in greenhouse gas emissions
.

More information on top 50 list of green power purchasers: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top50.htm.

ode to a brave girl

2009-04-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

looking to the stars
on a clear night

she said my head's cloudy
can i borrow your light?

the earth said
sit here love
& the breeze kissed her brow

as she started spinning she understood
how tiny her self was

interesting ... especially as i am reading margaret starbird's "lady with the alabaster jar"

2009-04-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

Tara Stiles
Posted April 11, 2009 | 09:53 AM (EST)

Was Jesus A Yogi?

So, I was up late the other night trying to wind down and I got sucked into watching the Discovery channel -- always an educational end to a long day. When the Easter bunny starts to round up his chocolate eggs, the Discovery channel cues up the Christian documentaries. Brushing up on obscure historical and spiritual insights has become a seasonal tradition enjoyed by millions.

When I was 5 years old, I wanted to be a nun. I had an innocent love for all people and felt best when I was helping someone. The job description seemed good to me too. I'd help people all day, never worry about what to wear, and get free room and board too. I was ready to sign up. By first grade I started to see the cracks in the system. The people and the buildings didn't live up to the feeling and seemed to stand for something else altogether. I had had enough of the sit-stand-kneel routine, and felt weird about confessing to an old man (who reports to God) in a tiny room separated by a screen. Independent thought, questions, and suggestions aren't good for maintaining the system. Things work a lot better if people stay in line and do what they are told. The spark I felt shifted some gears and my eyes opened to a power hungry side of human nature. I'm pretty sure lots of us have had a similar conflict between the connection to God we feel and what we are told that connection should be.

No wonder Constantine decided to omit the Gospel of Thomas when he was choosing which gospels to include in the nationalizing of Christianity. Unlike the other gospels which talk about the life of Jesus, the Gospel of Thomas primarily talks about his teachings. Many Christians believe this gospel is heresy because it isn't part of the traditional view of Jesus. That "traditional view" however was decided about 300 years after Jesus was around, by a Roman ruler whose primary interest was to centralize power of the state.

"When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."

That sounds a lot like meditation to me. Krishna Das tells a story about how Maharaj-ji told them to meditate like Christ. Maharaj-ji said that Christ lost himself in love. That's what you should do. Lose yourself in love.

"Jesus said, '"f your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you."

So, if the kingdom is inside all of us and we find this when we know ourselves, then we should move toward losing ourselves in love and knowing ourselves. There doesn't seem much of a need to go to Church anymore, does there? It seems like we have a lot of work to do that we can do on our own. Organizing in groups is good for discussion, community service, learning, meditation, and yoga. But looking to an external higher authority in a person could be distracting from the path Jesus may have been suggesting - which is to go inside to find God.

What would a world be like that is filled with love? Would we be able to hurt ourselves, each other, or our planet? What would a world be like if we all loved ourselves, practiced self-awareness and consciousness? It seems like it would be a wonderful place to be.

Who would have thought that late night TV can get the wheels turning? If you find yourself clicking around, see what's on Discovery.

10 Things I learned from the Discovery Channel

1. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

2. Jesus was probably not a Caucasian man. Well I figured that one out on my own. It's annoying how he's always shown as a lanky white boy with Calvin Klein modeling potential.

3. Jesus was a yogi.

4. Some bully with a sword (Constantine) decided which gospels stayed and which were banished. He then made sure the banished ones were destroyed along with the people who continued to read them.

5. Judas and Mary Magdalene also had gospels.

6. Banana peels really are slippery. (from Mythbusters)

7. It's impossible to get tired of watching Planet Earth.

8. Dirty Jobs is an awesome show.

9. Jesus is the most widely depicted figure in the history of art.

10. You should never microwave an egg.

watch anais nin

2009-04-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtLflH3-Jl4

2009-04-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

Richard Buckminster Fuller : "When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."

The cutting edge of science is not about the completely unknown. It is found where we understand just enough to ask the right question or build the right instrument.

— David Goodstein

more from bo culpepper

2009-04-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

wing nut du jour

2009-04-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

Bill Mann

TV-Radio critic, www.dcweasels.com
Posted April 12, 2009 | 04:22 PM (EST)

Limbaugh's Dirty Little Secret of Radio "Success"

Ever wonder why Rush "Boss" Limbaugh's syndicated radio show is all over the place like the proverbial cheap suit?

If you do much driving in rural areas -- e.g. between cities -- "Boss" Limbaugh's bloviations are often the only thing you can pick up on a car radio. Hey, that's what CD players are for.

Did Rush accrue hundreds of local radio affiliates across the country because his political views are mainstream? That's obviously not it. OK, so why IS his show so "popular?" Why do hundreds of stations around the country carry his show, the most widely syndicated talkfest in the country?

Glad you asked.

The real story is not generally well-known. The only reason I know is through my covering the business of radio for years for several major daily newspapers and also, for industry trade magazines like Radio World.

It's because -- ready for this? -- Rush's show was, and presumably still is, given away for free to many local radio stations.

This shocker is because of a little-known practice in broadcast syndication called a "barter deal." (Barter deals were briefly mentioned in Michael Wolff's first-rate recent piece on Rush in Vanity Fair).

Here's how a barter deal works: To launch the show, Limbaugh's syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks -- the same folks who syndicate wingnut du jour Glen Beck -- gave Limbaugh's three hours away -- that's right, no cash -- to local radio stations, mostly in medium and smaller markets, back in the early 1990's.

So, a local talk station got Rush's show for zilch. In exchange, Premiere took for itself much of the local station's available advertising time (roughly 15 minutes an hour) and packed the show with national ads it had already pre-sold.

Think Gold Bond Medicated Powder.

It's a very sweet deal for local radio station owners, explained Bill Exline a respected radio broker (he helped people buy and sell local stations). "Not only does the local station get three hours of free programming," Exline explained, "but that's one less local talk-show host on staff they need. It makes small- and medium-market radio properties more profitable and attractive by cutting down staff expenses."

Shocking, isn't it, that Limbaugh would allow jobs to be cut to advance his dubious career? Not to mention helping to make small radio stations far less local?

Major-market right-wing talk stations, like San Francisco's KSFO-AM ("Reichstag Radio") have to pay actual money, of course, to carry Boss Limbaugh's daily proclamation-a-thon. (Note: KSFO, which I referred to as "Sieg Heil on Your Dial" in my column when it first switched to righty talk, is the same station that gave hatemonger Michael Savage his first radio megaphone).

Radio sources say that small- and medium-market stations still get Limbaugh's show for free, or pay only a token amount of cash for it. I asked Michael Harrison, editor of radio-syndicator-friendly Talkers magazine about this, and he claimed he didn't know how many Limbaugh affiliates still barter. .

So, when you hear Rush bellowing as you're passing through Birdseed Junction, Beanblossom, or Pyrite, just remember: The radio station's getting what it paid for. Or, more accurately, DIDN'T pay for.

http://www.dwell.com/articles/the-countrys-best-yurt.html

2009-03-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

2009-03-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.dwell.com/slideshows/inside-job.html?slide=6

me

2009-03-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

art by bo culpepper from new york

2009-03-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

2009-02-27T09:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.knudodde.dk/start_uk.html

2009-02-13T02:40:00.000-08:00

pufftuffington post

2009-02-13T02:20:00.000-08:00

paulo coelho bread
queen afua honey, posture, a passion flower or a papaya
starhawke medicine
rilke water
mina loy like something you've never had before, every single time
linda goodman iced tea & sometimes a pomegranate margarita
mantak chia protein
madame blavatsky hydrogen & ethereal chocolate mousse
lorca a cup of coffee & a joint

elizabeth alexander poetry

2009-01-19T23:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.elizabethalexander.net/poems.html#VH

*** have a dictionary handy ***

this woman will speak at obama's inauguration

2009-01-12T01:37:00.000-08:00

where i've been

late harvest this year
back still bent
eyes dont remember up

my horizon line
fixed at work not done yet
cant release my gaze

realized-
this position,
my reflection
speaks of me

my emotional posture
an imploding spiral
stuck in gear

what would release this hot mess?
who would?

maybe me
maybe a moment of instantaneous healing
my brain can pull me out
my poetry lead me out
paulo coehlo stood in, leading me
line by line

the conversations
acted as compression
does to a muscle

i felt the slack
& worked the torque

i had been wound into a position
in which i no longer
had control-

i could only work
& tug at the tension to see
if it had given up yet

the purging
of so many words,
without caution,
served as a detox
a cleanse

a sweat

each drop falling in front
of a step
until i
finally see my
reflection in one-

turned down,
awkward posture

being loosened

love bends & bodies percussion. our kisses really could save the world,
save my world anyway
love bends me until i am loosened,
somehow age makes me introspective & critical-
a skin i want to shed.
the friction of passion burns surface tension
to reveal many women hiding behind
the sternest most serious one
she has to pay taxes & iron out the wrinkle of rebellion
calling her constantly to resist.
love- the antidote for steel toed thoughts pointing
always toward work
she needs a weakness
to bend her thoughts around uncommon things,
to untie tightly laced steel toe thoughts
like undressing your heart after so many days of wool sweater protection.
picasso hands embrace everything
even out of order
stroking beauty to the surface,
bringing the color back to panicky cheeks,
having even me believe that in the right light
my thoughts juxtapose my curves in such a way that complexity is intriguing
& stern boring mirrors become puddles,
loosening my reflection
the way Coltrane frees notes & commands edgy scales to be beautiful

meditations on love & grace (after reading 'by the light of my father's smile' by alice walker- it changed/ saved me)

as if i woke up now, at 33
thirsty for my soul's delight
a flavor i had forgotten like a childhood toy
alice walker woke me up
hypnotized me back into life
lured me,
a tiny lost fish,
into her stream
her current
her pool
of organic vitality
i drank her
swam in her
sucked her into my desert veins gone dry

& now finally a flood

stolen post (from digressivecogitation.blogspot)

2009-01-05T20:03:00.000-08:00

"My House is More Environmentally Friendly, Darker

So I replaced most of the light bulbs in my house with the ridiculously expensive, low wattage, environmentally friendly super bulbs now readily available. I have to say, their performance in the application they are intended for, lighting a previously dark area, leaves something to be desired. I am all for consuming less energy and paying lower power bills, but I am not that impressed thus far. They are similar to the inexpensive, power hungry conventional bulbs, except they don't work as well. If they actually manage to last the 5+ years advertised, I will be willing to accept the inferior performance; because I dislike changing bulbs more than I do dusky light. On a positive note, I think I'm going to start dusting less and listening to more Barry White. "

thanks mr moses ;)

http://merzenich.positscience.com/?p=177

2008-12-27T21:49:00.000-08:00

Michael Merzenich, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, University of California at San Francisco
Chief Scientific Officer, Posit Science

*****{from his blog archive}*****

Going googly.

Aug 11th, 2008 by Dr. Michael Merzenich

In the July-August issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Nicolas Carr asks us the interesting question: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The article appeared at an interesting time for me, because I had been invited to deliver a lecture at Google about 2 weeks before its publication, and I had already asked Google employees the same question. My way of phrasing it: “There is absolutely no question that modern search engines and cross-referenced websites have powerfully enabled research and communication efficiencies. There is also absolutely no question that our brains are engaged less directly and more shallowly in the synthesis of information, when we use research strategies that are all about “efficiency”, “secondary (and out-of-context) referencing”, and “once over, lightly”.”

We know that brains grow and elaborate and strengthen when they are CHALLENGED, and that they change little when solutions are easy to come by. We know that brains differentially strengthen specific heavily-exercised processes. The hippocampus of a trained London taxi driver, we know as an example, is highly developed, relatively to a typical London citizen. What do you suppose happens to that hippocampus when we mount a GPS unit in the taxi, or in the typical London citizen’s vehicle? ‘Tis not a pretty picture, brain-wise!

When culture drives changes in the ways that we engage our brains, it creates DIFFERENT brains. Mr. Carr records a beautiful statement from the psychologist Maryanne Wolf (a reading expert from Tufts University) that sums it all up: “We are not only what we read. We are how we read.” For “we”, you can substitute “our brains”, because they’re (You and Your-Brain are) synonymous.

“Hey, wait a minute”, you holler. “Aren’t Google and the Internet a tremendous POSITIVE advance, for incredibly richly supporting our personal education and research?”

Yes, pal, they are. Personally, it is difficult imaging living without them, or without modern technology in general. But at the same time, THEIR HEAVY USE HAS NEUROLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES. No one yet knows exactly what those consequences are.

http://hotchickswithdouchebags.com/

2008-12-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

wow! this is incredible! the farther you scroll down, the douchier it gets!

woah, this'll stop em

2008-12-14T13:36:00.001-08:00

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/04/rapestoppers_ra.html

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

2008-12-14T13:32:00.000-08:00

http://kristenferrell.wordpress.com/

2008-12-14T13:20:00.000-08:00

i love kristen ferrell's art. i love her obsession with 'sweet meets bizarre'. i now love her blog, she is funny and sparkly******

the twins rule!

2008-12-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

another creation that makes me smile by os gemeos

frieze magazine

2008-12-14T12:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.frieze.com/magazine/

Pixies, Sheilas, Dirtbags and Cougar Bait: Modern Slang

2008-12-11T23:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081229/crain/2

beautiful blog-- black and white photos

2008-12-04T17:46:00.000-08:00

http://oseculoprodigioso.blogspot.com/2007/05/henri-cartier-bresson-fotografia.html

giorgio morandi

2008-12-04T17:23:00.000-08:00

Giorgio Morandi by SIAE 2008
Natura morta, 1956

This article appeared in the December 22, 2008 edition of The Nation.
December 3, 2008

Jarring Bottles: The Paintings of Giorgio Morandi
By Arthur C. Danto

The paintings of Giorgio Morandi express an apparent humility of means underwritten by a life of seemingly total dedication to art. His works are searching, unassuming and small, 30 by 40 centimeters being the average dimensions of a canvas. They are imbued with a muted passion and appear to be unconcerned with anything beyond their manifest subject: simple houses set in dull landscapes or still lifes composed of the most ordinary household objects, bottles chiefly, but also nondescript boxes, carefully placed and painted with a diffident touch in matte pinks, pale yellows, pistachio and colors that have no name--the color of putty, say, or baked unglazed clay. Once he settled into his mature style, Morandi invariably titled his painting Natura morta if it was a still life or Paesaggio if it was a landscape. One irresistible Natura morta, painted in 1953, depicts five objects arranged in two rows. The front row contains a box painted with three wide horizontal stripes of white and muddy brown, a buttery yellow box and a grayish brown box, all rendered in slightly distorted perspective. The striped box and the yellow box occlude a black, handleless cup and an ornamental glass carafe with a wide lip and twisted neck. The group, which stands in a washed-out background of indeterminate color, casts a collective shadow to the right. The gray box seems almost to be shoving the yellow box at its side, exerting such a strong force that it distorts the edge where their tops meet.

Like this Natura morta, each of Morandi's paintings suggests a fresh return to the basics of art, undistracted by passions, erotic or political. Born in 1890, Morandi spent most of his life in Bologna, Italy, where he taught art and lived as a bachelor in an apartment with his mother (she died in 1950) and his three unmarried sisters. In Janet Abramowicz's essential book Giorgio Morandi: The Art of Silence, there is an exceedingly moving photograph of the artist's bedroom, which doubled as his studio. A lumpy, skimpy bed is placed against a wall, and a few of Morandi's small framed pictures are hung here and there above it. On the adjoining wall are some shelves holding flasks, compotes, jars, saucers, pitchers and boxes--the kind of bric-a-brac that one might find in this country at yard sales in tidy hardscrabble neighborhoods. Whatever there is to say about Morandi's exemplary life can also be said about his paintings: they are honest, quiet and modest, a reproach to the distracted, uncertain lives of the rest of us. San Giorgio of the Table Top!

How can small paintings of a few simple bottles and boxes be so irresistible? Why did Morandi return to these objects over and over, and without the gloss of routine ever dulling his art? The literature about Morandi almost universally answers these questions with recourse to two metaphors: his pictures are poems in paint, or they are studies in stillness and silence. Painting is silent by default, but paintings of silence are another matter. Ut pictura poesis--"as is painting, so is poetry"--was a notion first articulated by Horace. But if poetry is what we adore in Morandi, what is the poetry specific to painting? If one were to subtract the meaning from poetry, leaving only the music, then that which corresponds to the music would be what remains when meaning is subtracted from painting. If the nature of that substance could be divined, then perhaps the mystery of Morandi's work could be solved. Of course, we could set aside such conundrums and just enjoy the Morandi retrospective (the first in the United States) currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through December 14), especially the last, long part of it, where Morandi's signature style quietly asserts itself and each work is a minor revelation. But a critic has certain responsibilities.

Peter Schjeldahl has written of how the painter Vija Celmins, upon first seeing a Morandi still life in 1961, was struck by the way the objects seemed to be fighting for one another's space. For me, Morandi's objects are like people squeezing between others in the subway, making room for themselves at their neighbors' expense. Morandi's still lifes are scenes of dampened violence, and the compositions closest to them, in terms of feeling and tone, are those dense groupings of abstract forms in Philip Guston's paintings of the mid-1960s, where one too many objects are crowded into a clotted space when there is plenty of empty room elsewhere on the canvas, so that the array seems to quiver and dilate.

Morandi's still lifes are not that still: they are not Platonic placements of rigid geometrical bodies. The components interact and jostle, exerting pressure on one another rather than sitting quietly at rest. One begins to wonder if an allegory is being enacted. The artist Robert Irwin speaks of Morandi as dealing with the "time and space relationships within the painting per se." What can he mean by that? Where does time come into these paintings, and how? I have read that Morandi drew chalk circles around the bases of his objects, so that he would know where to place them, as if he were choreographing a sequence and the paintings implied internal narratives. I sometimes think that the same bottle may occupy two--or even three--spaces in a painting. Of course, there could be two bottles of the same shape and size. But what if there is one bottle that occupies two different spots in the same composition? Then the composition would have a history of displacement. Morandi's compositions certainly have a history of simultaneity. It is striking that the shadows in his paintings go this way and that, as if there were different sources of light, or as though the bottles were sundials casting shadows made at the different times of day they were painted. In any case, Morandi's compositions of humble household objects placed on a table are not dreamy. They are something more dynamic and aggressive; their physics and geometry are up for grabs.

Morandi was educated at the Accademia di Belle Arti in his native city. Its curriculum had changed little since it was established by the Carracci brothers, Agostino and Annibale, and their cousin Ludovico in the late sixteenth century. The Carraccis concentrated on life drawing, and they brought Italian painting out of the artificial and arch complexity of the high Mannerist style into what came to be known as the Baroque. It was a time of immense opportunity for artists who could create convincing narrative representations of the Christian epic featuring the suffering of Christ and his followers. The Bolognese School commanded a near monopoly over the images that decorated the Roman churches of the Counter-Reformation, which were expressly designed to strengthen the Catholic faith. In the Carracci atelier, painters were taught that their depictions of the human body wracked by pain and agony had to be so convincing that worshipers would bond with the martyrs they saw portrayed on the walls.

Morandi entered the Accademia in 1907, the year Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Two years later the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti hectored his Italian contemporaries in the pages of the French daily Le Figaro. "We want to demolish museums and libraries," Marinetti shouted in his Futurist Manifesto. "We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath...a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace." In 1913, recently graduated from the Accademia, Morandi was curious enough about Futurism to travel to Florence to see the first exposition of Futurist painting (which had opened at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris in February 1912). The paintings experimented with representing the speed and violence of modern life as simultaneously perceived and remembered. In his special theory of relativity, Einstein talked about a light flashing on a railroad car. How much more exciting for the Futurists if a revolver were fired from a passing train!

Like all painting academies since the seventeenth century, the Accademia enforced a hierarchy in which history painting was considered the most demanding and prestigious of genres. Still life was so off the scale of respectability that it was an act of insurrection to take it up. I would conjecture that Morandi gravitated to still life, in which he started to work regularly around 1915, because it was the genre in which he could experiment most freely, manipulating bottles and jars--the very bric-a-brac that the Futurists rejected as being "filthy and worm-ridden and corroded by time"--to investigate the questions regarding time and space that the Futurists lobbed like so many bombs. Obviously, moving a bottle from one place to another in a small still life can scarcely be considered a militant act. Yet for all its modesty, the gesture introduces a certain dynamism into art. It's telling that Morandi loathed the staid work of Baroque masters, most particularly Guido Reni, a painter of cloying saints, typically female, whose welling large eyes gazed raptly heavenward. Reni was the artistic counterpart to the syrupy liqueurs relished by Italians of an earlier generation. At the Met exhibition I bumped into Milton Glaser, who studied etching with Morandi. Glaser recalled looking at some Reni paintings with Morandi, who told him that Reni excelled at painting toes. It's an intriguing remark, since it reveals an irony that the paintings would not have led one to expect: toes as the seat of the soul.

Morandi was drafted into the Italian infantry in 1915 but was soon discharged as being psychologically unfit for military service. During his convalescence he encountered the work of Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà, both of whom had turned their backs on Futurism and had begun to develop what they called pittura metafisica, which used ordinary objects as windows into dimensions of reality hidden from consciousness. Discarding Futurism's speedolatry, de Chirico and Carrà made paintings of quiet, hauntingly vacant piazzas under relentless sunlight, creating a mood that would later be absorbed into Surrealism. The two men were inspired by Italian cities--in de Chirico's case, Turin, with its arcaded streets and heavy shadows. (De Chirico studied philosophy, particularly Nietzsche, who had found Turin hospitable, though it was there, in the Piazza Carlo Alberto, that he suffered a complete nervous breakdown.) In pittura metafisica, Morandi encountered a vision in which disparate mundane objects in emptied spaces evoke something dreamlike and allusive.

Morandi's Bottles and Fruit Dish [Still Life], 1916, features three banal objects--a fluted fruit dish and a carafe, both with helical patterns, and a tall, slender flask shaped like a truncated cone. All three objects seem to be made of opalescent glass; they are ghostly presences in a mysterious space. As a trio, they suggest a larger undisclosed meaning. The painting, which is considered an important contribution to pittura metafisica, today seems inconspicuous, a lesson in the way paintings that changed history fade into an exhibition when the history has been forgotten. Perhaps that's a measure of how drastically our sense of the commonplace has been transfigured by a certain iconic array of thirty-two Campbell's soup cans. Andy Warhol unveiled that work in 1962. Morandi died two years later.

Futurism and metaphysics are ideological antonyms to the whatness and whereness into which Morandi comfortably settled. Futuristic speed is hardly a value if what one needs for a human life is in the here and now; the emptiness of metaphysical painting is too thin for human habitation. In contemplating the achievement of Morandi's paintings, I can't help thinking of Jane Austen's wry characterization of her novels in a letter to her nephew James Edward Austen, also a writer: "What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety & Glow?--How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour?" The bombast and posturing of the Futurists could not elbow themselves into the fine, dynamic space that Morandi made his own--an adventure deeply different from what most still life aspires to.

About Arthur C. Danto
The Nation's art critic since 1984, Arthur Danto is also Columbia University's Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy. His numerous book credits include the 1990 National Book Critics Circle Award winner Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present and The Madonna of the Future: Essays in a Pluralistic Art World (2000). more...

my friend just sent me this link...

2008-12-04T17:06:00.000-08:00

my dream site! amazing, i will be busy this winter...

http://spoonflower.com/welcome

http://www.amenclinics.com/blog/

2008-11-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

A Magnificent Mind Can Be Yours Part 4 of 6
November 6, 2008 – 12:22 pm

My new book Magnificent Mind At Any Age is coming out 12/2/09. You can pre-order it on the website here. Starting 11/29 my new PBS special on this book will start airing across North America (November 7th in San Francisco on KQED).

Here is Part Four of Six of what you can expect in the book.

Increase Your Brain’s Reserve

Have you ever wondered why certain stresses or injuries affect some people and not others? I have. I have wondered why some people get depressed after losing a parent while others, although sad, keep going; why some people, after a minor head injury, seem to really be affected, while others don’t; or why some people can work many hours straight, while others are completely spent after a short period of time. Several years ago, after looking at many thousands of brain scans, I started to think about the concept of “brain reserve.” Brain reserve is the cushion, margin or extra neurons that we have to deal with unexpected events or insults. The more reserve we have, the more stresses or injuries we can handle. The less reserve, the more vulnerable we are.

When we are conceived, let’s say, we all start with the same reserve. Many things can erode it, many things can boost it. For example, if your mother smoked, drank much alcohol or was under constant stress when she was pregnant with you, she decreased your brain’s reserve. If she took fish oil, listened to classical music and mediated every day, likely she increased your reserve. If you fell down a flight of stairs at age three, were exposed to chronic stress from an alcoholic mother or father during childhood, were sexually molested as a child or teenager, drank too much alcohol or used drugs you decreased or limited your brain’s reserve. On the other hand, if you were fed a healthy diet, took fish oil, were raised by loving, consistent parents and were exposed to many different kinds of learning your brain’s reserve was likely increased.

Anything that harms brain function, starts to erode your brain’s reserve. Here are some factors known to decrease brain reserve.

Prenatal or birth injuries

Brain injuries

Excessive alcohol

Drug abuse

Negative thinking

Poor diet

Environmental toxins

Chronic stress

Lack of sleep/sleep apnea

Smoking

Excessive caffeine

Too much television or violent video games

Lack of exercise

Likewise, maintaining a brain healthy life will increase your reserve or hardiness to deal with pending stresses or trouble. I always want to be increasing my brain reserve, to deal with the crises that inevitably will come my way. Here are a number of ways to do it.

Positive social connections

New learning

Healthy diet

A daily multiple vitamin

Fish oil

Learning music

Regular exercise

Dancing (of course, without drinking)

Positive thinking

Gratitude

Meditation

If you wish to stay healthy during stressful times, you need adequate brain reserve. Start working today to add more neurons to your life.
By Dr. Amen | Comments (6)

so cool

2008-11-27T18:49:00.000-08:00

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/11/twitchie_scorpion.html

its a robot!

panama!

2008-11-27T18:43:00.000-08:00

http://fincalamaya.com/

http://rolexawards.com/en/the-laureates/elsazaldivar-home.jsp

2008-11-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

Technology meets ecology

Elsa Zaldívar takes leftover pieces of a vegetable sponge and mixes them with other vegetable matter and recycled plastic to form strong, lightweight panels that can easily be assembled into simple structures, including houses.

"We want to find sustainable housing alternatives for the poor, while also discovering new markets for their agricultural products. This is a perfect combination.”

Her technological, eco-friendly solution to her nation’s housing shortage will help save what remains of Paraguay’s rapidly diminishing forests.

for more laureates around the world... http://rolexawards.com/en/the-laureates/index.jsp

centering prayer

2008-11-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

Resting in God's Presence
by Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO

Centering Prayer as taught by Contemplative Outreach is a fairly nuanced practice. You can't always rely on what people say about the instruction they received. I have found that even after several years, people may not have fully understood how to do Centering Prayer. This becomes apparent during the Intensive Retreats or the Formation Workshops in which there is a careful review of the method itself.

One objection to Centering Prayer is as follows: "One is advised to let go of the sacred word just to rest in God's presence: " That advice has to be taken in its proper context and depends on certain steps going before.

First of all, letting go of the sacred word in Centering Prayer is not a deliberate choice. Still less is it a permanent disposition. The whole thrust of Centering Prayer is to encourage us to let go of all thoughts. A "thought" in Contemplative Outreach terminology is any perception whatsoever including memories, plans, visualizations, external or internal sensations, feelings, and self reflections. Any kind of reflecting, even to make a choice, is a "thought," and hence, an invitation to return to the sacred word.

In the beginning our advice is: Resist no thought, retain no thought, react emotionally to no thought, and when you notice you are thinking about some thought, return ever so gently to the sacred word. One does not think about whether to return to the sacred word or not. One simply returns to it when thoughts are attracting one's awareness to a particular object.
We recommend the "discrete" use of the sacred word rather than its constant repetition. By this we mean using it as much as one needs it. This may be continuously at first. Beginners need it whenever they notice they are thinking about some other thought. In following this advice, we note the fact that the sacred word may become indistinct or even disappear for a limited period of time. When thoughts again engage our attention, we return to the sacred word as before. Thus, a disposition of alert receptivity is gradually formed.

Later we suggest returning to the sacred word or symbol only when we notice that we are attracted to some other thought. The meaning of this advice is that with time and regular daily practice one can discern intuitively whether one is disinterested in the thoughts that are coming down the stream of consciousness. Disregard of the thoughts is the sign that the consent of the will is becoming habitual. The will can be directed to God at a very delicate level without having to express its intention in a sacred symbol. Thus, from our perspective, the sacred symbol is not a means of going some place like an elevator. Still less is it a means of bulldozing other thoughts out of awareness. It is rather, a question of cultivating the spiritual level of awareness, which is real awareness, but without particular content.

This brings me to the chief difference between Centering Prayer, Vipassana and Hindu mantric practice. Centering Prayer comes out of the Christian Contemplative Heritage, inspired in the first instance by the Desert Mothers and Fathers and the Hesychastic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, both of which cultivate interior silence and purity of heart. In the methods of meditation in the Eastern religions, the emphasis is on concentration for the sake of developing clarity of mind. By concentrative practices, I understand the use of the rational faculties and the imagination, physical movements and postures, and continued repetition of a word or phrase.

Centering Prayer is a passage from concentrative practices to alert receptivity through consenting to God's presence and action within us, which places the emphasis on purity of intention. Effort refers to the future, consent to the present moment where God, in fact, is. According to St. John of the Cross, purity of intention manifests itself during prayer as "a general loving attentiveness toward God." This is attentiveness not of the mind but of the heart. Its source is pure faith in God's presence leading to surrender to the interior action of the Holy Spirit in the here and now.

Article from Spring 1998 Newsletter, Volume 12 , Number 1

nice one adbusters...

2008-11-23T21:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/11/the-most-important-number-on-earth.html

2008-11-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

an article by bill mckibben

...We also need serious investment in infrastructure, both technological and human. For instance, concepts like concentrated solar power—those big mirror arrays in the desert—have gained real momentum in the last 18 months. Former Clinton administration energy analyst Joseph Romm recently calculated that such arrays could provide America with all of its electricity from a 92-square-mile grid in the Southwest desert—but only if promoted via loan guarantees for the entrepreneurs who build them and a new generation of transcontinental transmission lines. Meanwhile, demand is skyrocketing for small rooftop solar panels, but increasingly there's a shortage of trained installers, which means our community colleges need money to start training them. No matter what the price of energy, homes aren't going to insulate themselves—this is the great opening for a green-jobs revolution. (See "The Truth About Green Jobs.")

You'll note here I'm talking more about what we should do in the US House (and Senate) in the next year or two than which bulbs you should be changing in your house. diy conservation makes great practical sense, but we won't save the planet that way. One by one, trying to do the right thing, we add up to...not nearly enough. You cannot make the math work that way—there are too many sockets and too many tailpipes and most of all too much inertia for voluntary action to do the trick. It didn't work when President Bush made voluntary reduction by corporations his global warming "policy," and it won't work fast enough with individuals either.

Which is not to say that life at home doesn't need to change. It does—and it will, once we've taken the political step of making the price of carbon reflect the damage it does to the environment. Look at what happened this past year when the price of gas finally rose far enough to get our attention. We began riding trains and buses in record numbers. Total miles driven fell, sharply, for the first time since we started keeping records in 1942. We groused and moaned and we started to change. General Motors decided to sell its Hummer factory...

just do it- go veg allready

2008-11-23T20:55:00.001-08:00

http://www.chooseveg.com/animal-cruelty.asp

this will help...

i like the article, but the comments are the best..

2008-11-23T20:51:00.001-08:00

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/11/big-green-brother.html

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

2008-11-20T22:57:00.000-08:00

just finished The Witch of Portobello. Oh my stars, it is my new favorite. it and By the Light of my Father's Smile by Alice Walker are the best two books I've read this year.

Paulo Coelho has a blog and he posts a daily message. its great, its a video so you get to pretend he's talking to you.

2008-11-20T11:29:00.001-08:00

http://www.structuralenergetictherapy.com/

read some rilke...

2008-11-19T22:15:00.000-08:00

http://books.google.com/books?id=8Wmytz5d6QcC&pg=PR14&lpg=PR14&dq=letters+to+a+young+poet+analysis&source=bl&ots=IZZ-nZpLxi&sig=6JqpEN3XEIiTsoS3c81OT7L8g2s&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPP1,M1

wise words from my wise friend in a reply to my email....

2008-11-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite tortured souls , Tom Wingo in Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides, comes to mind;

"I did not yet have the interior resources to dream new dreams, I was far too busy mourning the death of the old ones and wondering how I was going to survive without them."

http://www.movingoncenter.org/SMTT.htm

2008-11-03T21:47:00.001-08:00

61 uses for baking soda

2008-10-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.bellybytes.com/articles/bakingsoda.shtml

stay healthy this fall, some great herbal anti virals

2008-10-25T00:42:00.000-07:00

From MOTHERNATURE.COM

Viral Infections

Viruses are very strange. They are incredibly small--so tiny that while ordinary microscopes can see the body's cells and the bacteria that may infect them, you need much more powerful electron microscopes to see virus particles.

I use the word particle because by most definitions of life, viruses aren't really alive. They contain only genetic material (DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protein capsule. Viruses don't ingest food, breathe oxygen or eliminate wastes. All they do is reproduce after they've infected cells that are susceptible to them.

Antibiotics are generally useless against viruses; they work most actively against bacteria. Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, mainstream medicine has come up with dozens of antibiotics. But today we still have only a handful of antiviral drugs, among them acyclovir for herpes, AZT for AIDS and interferon, the body's own virus fighter.

Green Pharmacy for Viral Infections

The good news is that several herbs used in traditional herbal medicine have scientifically documented antiviral effects. They're what I use when I have colds, flu and other viral infections. I discuss many of these herbs in the chapter on colds and flu (see page 133), but I want to devote one chapter to a look at herbs that can be tried as a treatment for any viral infection.

Echinacea (Echinacea, various species). This is by far the most popular antiviral herb, and for good reason. Echinacea fights viruses in two ways. It contains three compounds with specific antiviral activity--caffeic acid, chicoric acid and echinacin. Root extracts ofechinacea have also been shown to act like interferon, the body's own antiviral compound. In addition, echinacea is an immune stimulant that helps the body defend itself against viral infection more effectively.

Herbalists are quick to tout echinacea as an immune booster, but the fact is, scientists still don't fully understand how it stimulates the immune system. Some suggest that it increases the body's levels of a compound known as properdin, which activates the specific part of the immune system, called the complementary pathway, that is responsible for sending disease-fighting white blood cells into infected areas to battle viruses and bacteria.

Other researchers maintain that other compounds in the herb, lipophilic amides and polar caffeic acid derivatives, are at the root of its immunostimulant activity. One compound, chicoric acid, inhibits integrase, an enzyme that's important in viral reproduction.

I'm generally impressed with the way all the compounds in a plant have a way of working together harmoniously, so I'm inclined to believe that all of these immune-boosting properties work together.

Commission E, the German expert committee that judges the value of herbal medicines for the German government, has approved echinacea for treatment of influenza-like symptoms. That constitutes a significant scientific endorsement of this herb, which is native to America.

Echinacea, the Plains Indians' primary medicine, today is the world's best-recognized herbal immunity booster.

Astragalus (Astragalus, various species). Also known as huang qi, this is an immune-boosting herb from China. In one small Chinese study, ten people whose heart muscles were infected by Coxsackie B virus, which causes the heart inflammation known as myocarditis, received injections of astragalus extract for three to four months. The activity of their natural killer cells, a component of the immune system, rose 11 to 45 percent. They also showed increased levels of alpha- and gamma-interferon, the body's own antiviral compounds. Not surprisingly, their symptoms improved. European studies suggest that, as withechinacea, many of the immune-stimulating compounds in astragalus are active when taken orally.

Dragon's blood (Croton lechleri). This herb is also known as sangregrado or sangre de drago. There's a good reason why dragon's blood is on the back cover of the Amazonian Ethnobotanical Dictionary, which I co-authored in 1994 with Rodolfo Vasquez, botanist at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Several compounds in it, among them dimethylcedrusine and taspine, have antiviral and wound-healing properties that may be especially useful against the viral sores caused by herpes. The natural mixture of all three compounds heals wounds four times faster than the individual compounds alone.

I use dragon's blood when I get cuts or abrasions in tropical Peru. Unfortunately, this herb is not yet widely available in the United States, although I expect that it will be soon. It is applied externally.

Garlic (Allium sativum). In addition to its well-known antibacterial action, garlic is also antiviral. Several of the sulfur compounds in garlic are active against the flu virus, according to Heinrich P. Koch, Ph.D., professor of pharmaceutical chemistry and biopharmaceutics at the University of Vienna, and Larry D. Lawson, Ph.D., a research scientist at an herb company in Utah, authors of Garlic: The Science and Therapeutic Application of Allium Sativum and Related Species.

Again, I'm reluctant to point to any specific compounds in garlic, because I suspect that they all somehow work together.

Some physicians who use herbs recommend taking two garlic capsules a day to treat colds, flu and other viral infections. But I prefer fresh garlic to capsules, and so does naturopath Jane Guiltinan, N.D., chief medical officer of Bastyr University in Seattle. She recommends consuming up to a dozen cloves a day. I'd have trouble with taking that many, except in salad dressing,garlic bread, soups and vegetable juice.

To avoid colds, I'd suggest you go ahead and eat a lot of garlic as a preventive. The other food to favor is onion, a close relative of garlic, which has similar though less potent antiviral action.

Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis). Like echinacea, goldenseal is an immune stimulant, thanks to the berberine it contains. I often use it in combination with echinacea.

Juniper (Juniperus, various species). Even among herbalists, it's not widely known that juniper contains a potent antiviral compound (deoxypodophyllotoxin). Juniper extracts appear to inhibit a number of different viruses, including those that cause flu and herpes. Sometimes when I feel a cold coming on, I make ajuniper tea.

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis). Also known as melissa, this herb is highly recommended as an antiviral, especially against herpes. I would try lemon balm for treating any viral infection. It makes a very pleasant tea.

Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra). Among its many other medicinal uses, licorice is active against many types of viral infections. One of its eight active antiviral compounds, glycyrrhizin, inhibits a number of processes involved in virus replication, among them penetration of the body's cells and replication of viral genetic material.

You could try a tea made by adding a few teaspoons of chopped dried root per cup of boiling water; steep for about ten minutes.

Shiitake (Lentinus edodes). This tasty Asian mushroom contains a compound called lentinan that has antiviral, immune-stimulating and anti-tumor properties, according to a report published in the Lawrence Review of Natural Products, a respected newsletter. Its antiviral action has been demonstrated in experiments with laboratory animals. Shiitake extract helped protect mice against viral encephalitis.

Shiitake capsules are available, but I personally prefer to use the whole mushroom as food.

Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus.) Several compounds in eucalyptus, hyperoside, quercitrin and tannic acid, have virus-killing properties, according to pharmacognosist (natural product pharmacist) Albert Leung, Ph.D.

Forsythia (Forsythia suspensa) and honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). Whenever I feel a cold or flu coming on, I mix up a revered Chinese tea combo with honeysuckle and forsythia. Sometimes I add a little antivirallemon balm. Like lemon balm, honeysuckle and forsythia contain compounds that are proven virus killers. I find the combination of honeysuckle, forsythia andlemon balm especially nice in hot tea just before bed.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale). Good old ginger is good for more than just motion sickness and upset stomach. According to my database, it contains ten antiviral compounds. So if you have a viral illness, you could try someginger tea or add ginger liberally to dishes you cook. Many of the antiviral compounds in ginger also appear in turmeric.

i posted this in march, still "in process"

2008-10-24T00:22:00.000-07:00

prayer of jabez
Lord bless me indeed and extend my territories. Reach down your hand and protect me from evil. amen

I will need a lot of guidance and grace as i move from reckless giving to a cool, refined love given with a bit more logic. It doesn't come natural but it seems necessary to rewind the lines i have sent out. Recoiling like the kundalini does after its rise. I am returning to the warmth of my own inner fire to replenish. The world feels my shadow now as i put myself first to receive the amber glow of my inner embers. The logic is self preservation with the intention of future giving-- a more mature and cultivated gift of sustainability. In process....

i have the coolest landlord & he got me in to this band & now i'm obsessed. thank god

2008-10-23T23:58:00.000-07:00

2008-10-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

the felice brothers-- well two of 3, they are just the realest

2008-10-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

loving the fleet foxes

2008-10-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

this is a special little moment with the fleet foxes lead singer/guitarist

http://obscuresound.com/

2008-10-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

cool indie music blog

http://www.artxxmagazine.com/

2008-10-15T17:52:00.001-07:00

i love monica canilou

2008-10-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

saw an installation in sf in april & she is such a huge inspiration to me

when ihave some extra money i'll shop here...

2008-10-09T13:04:00.001-07:00

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/home

great crafty blog with beautiful presentation and tutorials

2008-10-09T13:02:00.001-07:00

http://www.kukyideas.com/journal/2008/10/09

this is cool

2008-10-08T23:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.womensradio.com

from DEEP ECONOMY...by Bill McKibben

2008-10-01T22:48:00.001-07:00

"... if the Chinese ate meat the way we do, they'd use two- thirds of the world's grain harvest; if they drove as many cars as we do, they'd use all the oil the world currently produces plus 15 million extra barrels a day. "The western economic model," the eco-statistician Lester Brown says simply, "the fossil fuel based, auto centered throwaway economy is not going to work for China. And if it does not work for China, it will not work for India, which has an economy growing at 7 percent a year and a population projected to surpass China's in 2030. Nor will it work for the other 3 billion people in the developing world who are also dreaming the American dream."
... "The point, of course, is not that we should have it and they shouldn't; it's that extending Western-style consumption to the developing world is not going to work..."

"Meeting somewhere in the middle may be our only hope. The poor nations of the world need to develop. But if they develop according to our model, the planet will break under the strain. We in the rich nations need to change, not just for environmental reasons but because our way has stopped producing as much human happiness as it should. That middle ground is hard to define, and will take generations to reach it, because we start so far apart. But it is more local than the world we know now, and less individualistic. It measures not More but Better..."

2008-09-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

fairy god-mother
poetess
divining me
unwinding me

olive oil
still dripping
from your poetry

air around us
thick as italian accents,
possessive of words

smooth skin goddess
you possess words
weaving question marks
in our hearts

you possess words
smooth skin goddess
Eagle woman
nourishing me-
hatchling maiden-
with tenderized manifestos

libra with gemini rising
spooky eyes
that mostly hide behind 700$ italian designer glasses
you are a cat
you are a saint
you are a myth, an
allegory

poetic story
spun round
on the medicine wheel
cosmic chrysallis
released you

fanning me with
giant wings
teaching me the song
so that i too may sing

sister, girl, ancient lover
poetess familiar
dissolving me
exfoliating my adolescent
skin falsely protecting,
stubborn shield
that waited
waded through books
seeking flesh all along
to unlock this unrest

2008-09-28T00:30:00.001-07:00

dedicated to susie & my sister cindy

2008-09-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

2008-09-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

i guess i'm going to write a novel... i've kind of been wanting to . check out http://www.nanowrimo.org/ for more info...

2008-09-25T22:33:00.001-07:00

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

lovin this blog

2008-09-25T22:22:00.001-07:00

http://www.strikethru.net/

more craft fairs coming up

2008-09-22T08:39:00.001-07:00

Sunday November 2nd 2008
10:00am - 5:00pm
San Francisco County Fair Building
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

FREE ADMISSION

You Bazaar! will be on November 2nd 2008 from 10am to 5pm at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. You Bazaar! will feature 30 select craft vendors selling quality handmade wares and a series of rotating workshops throughout the day with some of your favorite plush designers. While we would like to use this event to promote plush art we welcome all crafters to apply for a vendor space. This will be a fun family friendly event to kick off the Plush You SF Show, opening Friday, November 7th 2008 and excite customers for the holiday shopping extravaganza Bazaar Bizarre San Francisco on Sunday, November 30th 2008

http://www.craftster.org/forum/

2008-09-22T08:25:00.001-07:00

Kraft-a-billy!

2008-09-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

What: Kraft-a-Billy
When: Sunday September 28th
Where: Thee Parkside 1600 17th St @ Wisconsin, San Francisco, CA 11am-5pm
Featured Attractions:
Crafts
Pin-up contest
Burlesque performance
Car show
Raffle
Admission is FREE!
more info @ http://myspace.com/kraftabilly

Read DEEP ECONOMY By Bill McKibben

2008-09-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

such an amazing read

as one blogger said "set the alarm and kiss the kids goodbye"

2008-09-09T23:34:00.000-07:00

http://webcast.cern.ch/index2.html

2008-08-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

i am happiest gently lead, even though
i might resist
& plead another way

as if i'm in denial
of the ground laid before me

chica mala
little woman
not made for these roads

wise little girl
all dressed up
waiting for a hand

for a gesture so personal
even my left lung recognizes it

i'm better caressed
smitten with a stroke
side of the head, or
low on the back just
under the shirt or
sliding between my
skin & the waistline of my pants,
a smoothing, a tuck

almost sounds like a
mom would do,
i, much too old for
that luxury,
would melt in the
hands of
sure desire,
should it aim itself at me.

my breath, that left
lung, may not be a
fair measure,
it's too hungry

where does trust dwell
beyond a moment of
fateful instinct?

how is the distance of
touching objects the
farthest?

could i pull stars closer
by falling in love with
them & return them
farther than before by
tyring to know their
intimacies?

it's the force i'm
enamored with
not the object on the
other end

so there it is, the
dance
maybe i'm too content
with the dance & then
every-sometimes the dancer, but
never both at the same time

is it me?
is it life?

contentedness recruits
the longing mind to
find peace within
& quiet the questions.

2008-08-25T09:20:00.001-07:00

Bruno Taylor's Playful Spaces

“71% of adults used to play on the streets when they were young. 21% of children do so now. Are we designing children and play out of the public realm?

This project is a study into different ways of bringing play back into public space. It focuses on ways of incorporating incidental play in the public realm by not so much as having separate play equipment that dictates the users but by using existing furniture and architectural elements that indicate playful behaviour for all.

It asks us to question the current framework for public space and whether it is sufficient while also giving permission for young people to play in public.

Play as you go…” Bruno Taylor."

2008-08-24T18:23:00.001-07:00

been sewing dolls all summer, a few highlights

2008-08-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

2008-08-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

2008-08-24T11:02:00.000-07:00

how to silk screen

2008-08-19T09:12:00.001-07:00

101 Silkscreenheader
Print your designs on anything you can hang, wear, or tote. A special 101 from CRAFT vol 1: CRAFT 01 (subscription information).

Silk-screening is a great way to personalize  your gear. It's a very basic process that has unlimited outcomes. One of the easiest ways to get a design on almost any surface is to use the photo emulsion process. Once you've made the screen, it's ready to print time and time again. Follow along as I walk my colleague Sara Huston through the process of transferring our design to  a screen, and printing it on a laptop bag.

Work up an idea for your design. On your first attempt, try a one-color design, keep it simple, and have some fun with it. Once you get it figured out, make your design digital. Sara and I created ours in Illustrator, but you can also scan a drawing. If you are really hands-on, you can draw straight onto transparency paper using India ink. You need a solid black positive to burn into the screen. I print on transparencies, using a black and white laser printer. This gives me an easy way to accurately, cheaply, and quickly create a positive.

Gather
» diazo photo emulsion made by

» 8"x10" silk screen
» 8"x10" piece of glass
» squeegee
» task lights (2)
» 150-watt bulbs (2)
» transparency paper for black and white copier/laser printer
» silk-screen inks (createx and speedball have worked well for me)
» lid to ikea bin for stretching shirt over, or other hard flat surface you can slip into a shirt

Optional
» fan (i use a small vornado)
» diazo photo emulsion remover (if you want to clean your screen and start over)

Design
101 Silkscreen Design
More: Go to craftzine.com/01/101 for more designs to print.
Start
101 Silkscreen Start
Step 1: Prep the Screen
Mix the photo emulsion as per the directions.

Coat the screen with photo emulsion, working fairly quickly over a sink or surface you can get messy.  It's OK to have indoor lights on during this process, but keep out of direct sunlight. The emulsion needs to be applied evenly, so keep flipping the screen over and squeegeeing until the emulsion is even on both sides. Any globs will cause uneven exposing and will mess up your end result. The thicker the emulsion is applied, the longer the screen will have  to be exposed.

The screen needs to be completely dry in order to expose it, and should be dried in a pitch-black room. I dry my screen by resting the wood frame on a couple of shoe boxes in the closet, so that the screen is parallel to and above the floor. This allows the air to flow above and below the screen to help it dry faster. Make sure that only the frame touches the boxes, so as not to mess up the nicely applied emulsion. You can place a fan (I use Vornado because they are compact) next to the screen. Drying it this way takes 30 minutes to an hour, depending on humidity.

Step 2: Expose the Screen
101 Silkscreen Step2

Now that it is dry, place the screen on your workspace with the bottom facing down. Put your transparency on the screen in the center and as squarely as you can, then place a piece of glass on top. This holds your transparency down so that it makes direct and even contact with the screen. If it doesn't make direct contact, then your design will appear fuzzy around the edges.

The light source needs to be placed about 12 inches from the screen to get good results, and it needs to shine evenly across your design. I use two $10 task lights. These are great because they allow me to easily adjust my light source, and by having two, one on either side of the screen, we can make sure the entire design gets an even, direct supply of light. Follow the directions that came with the emulsion for exposing your screen. It varies with the bulb and screen size. I'll burn our screen for about 30 minutes. You can tell when the screen is done by looking: the exposed areas turn dark green when they are baked solid by the light.

Tip: For a super-dense positive, make two transparencies with your design on them. Line them up and attach them together with double-sided tape.

Step 3: Wash and Dry Screen
101 Silkscreen Step3

Now that the screen is exposed, wash it off in the sink with hot water. It takes some force to wash the screen effectively. I've attached a special nozzle to my faucet that creates higher pressure. (I got a nozzle at Bed Bath & Beyond for $5. Just screw it on and it'll toggle between high and low. Works great for dishes too; I leave it on all the time.)

Along with spraying, you can gently rub the screen with your fingers. Don't use your fingernails. If you force the emulsion off, you run the risk of tearing  off the hardened emulsion, putting you back to  step 1. You want only the unexposed area to wash off. Under hot water, the emulsion will become slightly gummy. Drying the screen isn't such a big deal this time around, now that it isn't sensitive to light. Prop it up against the fan, or place it where it can get some air. Silk dries quickly.

Step 4: Print It
101 Silkscreen Step4

Now that the screen is exposed, washed, and dried, print it and see how it works. Try it out on paper first.

Lay the screen down flat, making sure that your surface is even and flat.

With a spoon, put a glob of paint on the screen and spread it the width of your design. Don't get any on the design itself, just the area above it.

Now the fun part. Hold the screen down firmly  with one hand (or have a buddy help hold it). Use a squeegee to pull the ink down to the bottom of the screen. Apply a small amount of pressure to the squeegee as you pull the ink. You will be able to see  the paint evenly distributed across the screen.

Lift the screen and look at your beautiful print! Be very careful when you lift off the screen. Try to peel it slowly and directly up, so you don't smudge the fresh ink. It may want to stick to the paper.

It's as easy as that! Lay the screen down on another piece of paper and do a few more prints for fun.

for all the crafty ones

2008-08-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

http://blog.craftzine.com/