Billmon - worth reading.

Old friend of mine, Frederic Christie, has a blog that isn't a blog. He has one of those minds that makes me glad that I can garden and paint and pound rocks together, because in the thinkin' area, I can't keep up. He lives in Davis, CA, my old hangout, and which little town still appears in my paintings more than you would think, since I last lived there in 1990.

Frederic writes about politics and buddhism. check im out.

Met some great artists at the Artshow in Pittsfield last weekend. I have such mixed feelings about the events, but I'm always so glad to have done it. Standing around talking is a lot of work for me. I'm almost deaf and have trouble comprehending things sometimes, and besides, like a lot of artists, I'd just rather be home working. But part of the work is getting out and talking to people, and seeing them enjoy and understand your work, or seeing them dismiss or dislike it. When they understand your work in ways that you don't, that's even better. When and if they dislike it, it's an opportunity to practice not being so attached to your own opinion of your work, which is very healthy.

Lisa Reinke had some great work, and is also a blogger! Check her site out!

Another Artshow on June 25,26 which I'll be at as well if you missed this one. Also, Art On No - the building where my new studio is - will be having a big open house on Friday June 24 and an Open Studio on June 24, 12-5. 311 North Street!

Watched Crash last weekend on the recommendation of a friend. Note: I give a few things away...

The Buddhists say that anger is the worst emotion - it takes us straightaway and without passing GO to the Hellworld. It is the most destructive to our own well-being (both here and in the hereafter) and the most likely to be passed on to others in an emotional contagion.

This movie shows the contagion, as one person passes their frustration and anger onto another, and on, and on, and then antidote to the contagion, that is, compassion, in ways rarely matched. The acting is superb. Don Cheadle plays a detective who takes it all on himself. There's a Tibetan practice of taking on other's suffering called tonglen, and Cheadle's character does it, doesn't know why, just that it's what he must do.

Crash also goes against the grain by making the characters complex. There are no strictly good characters, nor strictly bad. Y'know, the way life is, tho we're encouraged in so many ways to not know that, and to think of ourselves as good, and others as bad. Crash tricks us, in a way, by setting up some really loathesome characters, and some whom we're likely to think of as good guys. And then we're surprised. And even within the frame of the story, characters are forced to deal with this same situation.

One character experiences what is clearly enlightenment; he tries to murder someone, and when his attempt fails, he sees it all. The madness drove him right out through the top. "It's all OK," he says, over and over. That's what I think we don't realize. "It's all OK."

I'm troubled by thoughts of another kind of crash. But I can see the benefits in this way. We're insane; maybe it will take us right out through the top. One of my favorite Chogyam Trungpa books is Transcending Madness. Now that's what I'm talking about.

Just saw this on Slashdot. Some Japanese scientists are aiming to be the 1st to make a hole through the Earth's crust and get to the mantle. They are hoping to use this research to possibly discover life down there, better understand undersea earthquakes, and uncover records of climate change.

This is a pretty cool prospect to me. I hope that the team gets their "Chikyu" (Japanese for Earth) drill down there. I doubt this will be an adventure of Verneian proportions, but it is nice to see that there is a frontier on Earth that still hasn't been conquered by man.

"Humans have brought back lunar rocks to understand the universe, yet we have never reached the mantle which accounts for most of earth."