consciousness

Clearly and obviously, I'm among the more dazed and confused. Can’t stay on topic. Short attention span. Where some, most it seems, see the path before them plain as day – even if it be one requisite of adroit maneuver – I usually can’t see my own fingers if arms at full extension.

Well, news from CERN has it that there are particles moving faster than the speed of light. Sounds like a big deal given E=MC2 and all of that. However, reading through the blogs, it seems that Einstein’s theory already allowed for neutrinos of the “Tachyonic” sort to exist always at faster than light.

Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto did a series of black-and-white photographs of Richard Serra’s 'Joe,' a sculpture which sits in an outside courtyard at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis.

Sugimoto’s work is interesting for a variety of reasons not least because of Serra’s own surprise: “This is not about me."

Do you dream in black and white or color? Interesting that in the 50’s most respondents to that question would say b&w. Now most say color. What’s up with that? Humanoid brains have evolved and grown in size, but not that much that fast.

A philosopher* holds that the real answer is neither. Those choices just happen to have been the most convenient metaphors or analogies for a given place and time –- conjured up by those exposed to black-and-white film in the case of the former and color TV of the latter.

Brother was riding his bike recently, came upon an unexpected obstruction, went over the handlebars and fractured his wrist. His recollection of the event was interesting. “It was all in slow motion. I remember the sound pattern made by my helmet on the sidewalk.”

Please don’t repeat this to anyone. Last Friday, wife and I rode our bikes along the river to a brew pub for dinner. On way home via a different route just before dusk she (up ahead) exclaimed: “Is that what I think it is!? Let me have your knife!”

I did so and then watched as she cut the tail off of a dead black squirrel. Jeesh. Unfortunately I’ve many times found myself part of that peculiar sort of excision separating tail from torso of skunk, deer, raccoons, and more. All in service to art. She makes fine brushes with the hair.

A recent experiment* suggests certain sorts of simple movements can improve creative thinking. Researchers had students squeeze a rubber ball with their right and left hands before taking a test –- success on which required “the formation of associative links between otherwise unrelated concepts in order to solve problems in novel ways."

On January 3, 1963 aired an episode of the Twilight Zone that I’ve not forgotten even though I was then not quite 11 years old. My memory doesn’t always serve up perfection, but generally does well enough to summon up the gist.

I’m interested in stairs. Their purpose is obvious, but appearance and experience vary considerably. More than any other aspect of the built environment, they make you aware of your own presence within or upon it. Successful negotiation of even a single step transition requires a greater portion of one’s attention than the whole rest of a structure’s circulation pattern.

Yup, just as you thought, the above image is evidence of a universe previous to the one in which we now find ourselves. In a recently published paper, Roger Penrose (cf 12/18/09) and Vahe Gurzadyan theorized these concentric circles are vestiges in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) of the cataclysmic end of the preceding cosmos in the collision of two supermassive black holes.