While post-processing the photograph I recalled something I hadn't heard in a long time, Joni Mitchell's Shadows And Light, performed live with The Persuasions (and Lyle Mays on keyboards).
The above photo was taken in 2007 in downtown Bakersfield. It would look great as a large gallery-wrap canvas print.
Translation of Djavan's Esquinas (Corners):
Only I know the corners through which I passed
Only I know Only I know
People know there what it means to not have and to have in order to give
They know there They know there
And who will it be in the surroundings of love who will know to observe that the day has dawned
Only I know the deserts that I crossed
Only I know Only I know
People know there what it means to die of thirst in front of the sea
People know People know
And who will it be in the current of love who is going to know how to guide the boat before long through the surging wind easily and bring all the peace that one day the wish conveyed
Only I know the corners through which I passed
Only I know Only I know
Start the music and then scroll back up and click on the photo to see it at full size.
Note: I've written a number of letters/emails over the years many of which have gone unanswered leaving me to wonder whether or not the intended recipients ever received them and, if so, what their responses were. To be honest, the vast majority of those are best forgotten, but a few are ones I sincerely hoped would succeed in being actual communications — the beginnings of conversations. The following is one of those.
President Bush announcing the beginning of the Iraq War. March 20, 2003.
March 24, 2003
Mr. President,
I would like to suggest that there is much to be gained at this time by avoiding "God on our side" forms of rhetoric, whether intended or not. If you are going to ask for God's blessing, don't merely ask that God bless America but that God bless all people who value freedom, including the citizens of Iraq. If you are going to ask that people pray for the families and loved ones of those who have suffered because of this war, then ask that they pray for all such people including the families and loved ones of Iraqi citizens who have suffered.
Please consider the significance of paying tribute to a God who is limited by the political boundaries of men. Please consider that your God may indeed be powerful enough to bless, comfort and guide all men, regardless of whose side they are on.
Sincerely, Paul Pomeroy
Imagine, if you can, how different his address to the nation would have been perceived on the world stage if he had asked his country to pray for everyone. Then again, had he been capable of conceiving such a thing it's highly unlikely there would have been a war to announce in the first place ...
It's hard to believe, but on average, every second of every day, for 280 days, the baby's brain increases in size by an additional 4,100 neurons. (At birth a baby's brain has somewhere in the vicinity of 100 billion neurons.)
And how about the connections between all those neurons? The number of connections a neuron makes (i.e., from that neuron to other neurons) varies greatly depending on the type of neuron and its location but a low estimate of the average is 1,000. That means that, again on average, more than 4,100,000 new neuron-to-neuron connections are formed in the developing brain every second, non-stop, for 280 days.
My Brain.mp3
Music is by Mose Allison on his new The Way Of The World.
Note: I've written a number of letters/emails over the years many of which have gone unanswered leaving me to wonder whether or not the intended recipients ever received them and, if so, what their responses were. To be honest, the vast majority of those are best forgotten, but a few are ones I sincerely hoped would succeed in being actual communications — the beginnings of conversations. The following is one of those.
While the following was addressed to the NY Times Editor (and, due to its length, stood no actual chance of being published) it was also cc'd to Google where I'd hoped it might be appreciated.
June 21, 2004.
Dear Editor,I cannot decide whether the title for Saul Hansell's article about Google's GMail service ("The Internet Ad You Are About to See Has Already Read Your E-Mail" - June 21, 2004) is subtly brilliant or just very badly worded. How can an advertisement read anything? Isn't it Google that's reading "your e-mail?" Well, no, that can't be right either. How can a "Google" read anything? So, maybe it's Google's software that's doing the reading? That sounds a little more plausible and one might be excused for thinking that software, with all the information processing and artificial intelligence the word would seem to imply, is certainly able to read. And yet, in truth, that is also certainly not right.In "A Mathematical Theory of Communication," Claude Shannon's seminal paper that launched us into the so-called Information Age, he begins with the mostly forgotten statement that, and I'm paraphrasing here, although he's chosen to use the word information, of course he isn't really talking about the communication of actual information as that would imply a whole host of semantic issues his theory doesn't need to deal with. It was an unfortunate choice of words, one I've often wondered about. I think that he probably never imagined how willingly people would accept and build upon a concept of information without semantics. To me, what he presents in his paper equates to a theory of the communication of "meaningless information," a phrase that sounds pretty oxymoronic. It would have been far better to have used the word data, a word that more accurately describes what flits about on wire and wave both begotten and consumed by brainless electronics. Information, as hinted at by its -ation suffix, is really more verb than noun. It isn't some thing that can be isolated, stored or shipped about. It's a process, one requiring an enormous amount of knowledge and intelligence to carry out. People do information so easily that it seems like something given, something that is just out there in the world for the taking. We rarely notice how much of what we see isn't really out there at all. Consider this series of 5 numbers and letters: T 11 C W 9. This is probably about as uninformative to you as it would be to a computer. But pay attention to what happens when they're presented in a slightly different manner: WTC 9 11. To a computer it's just another arrangement of bytes, but to you this is vastly different. What's so easily missed, though, is where that difference resides. It's a phenomenon of our minds that gives us the impression that the difference is outside of us, that it's in this arrangement of characters, but it's really inside, inextricably bound up with the process of information. And that process, itself, is bound up with who we are, what we know and what we've experienced. The meaning of WTC 9 11 is different for each of us and it changes as we change. For that to be true—for the same character sequence to result in so many different meanings—the meaning, and therefore the information, can't be out there in the character sequence at all. In his article, Mr. Hansell touches upon this miscomprehension of information with examples of how ads bundled with a particular Gmail message are sometimes odd or inappropriate, and he gets closer to the heart of the issue when he discusses how the software behind Gmail can't really tell if "polish" is a nationality, an action or a quality. What he fails to state, though, is that Google's software, as sophisticated as it is, doesn't read in any sense of the word approaching what we mean when we say that we read e-mail. It mixes and matches and manipulates symbols and rules but it doesn't comprehend—it doesn't do information, all it does is process data. What bothers people about Gmail isn't the targeted ads but the misconception that Google must be figuring out what the messages mean (and, as it's the only way we're familiar with, it must be getting the same kind of meaning from them as we do). The truth of the matter is that today's state-of-the-art software-intelligence is still hung up on the self-inflicted conundrum of how to find meaning in "meaningless information." There is certainly progress being made but, in the end, it simply takes what it takes to be smart enough to do information as well as we do and what it takes is enormously more complex than anything Google's working on (not to mention enormously different).Software may eventually get there (and probably will). When it does it will appreciate the subtle humor in the title Mr. Hansell has (unwittingly or not) given his article. As nonsensical as it is literally, people aren't going to get stuck on the impossibility of "ads that read" and miss the intended message. We can just skip right past this kind of mistake and still manage to understand what the author was getting at. In doing so in this case, we might notice that to give an article about software's supposed ability to read our writing a title that's a perfect example of what software can't read is kind of clever and funny. How will we know when Google's software is getting smart enough to worry about? Maybe when Google can giggle. Until then, I think there are more significant and realistic things to be concerned with.Sincerely, Paul Pomeroy
Note: I've written a number of letters/emails over the years many of which have gone unanswered leaving me to wonder whether or not the intended recipients ever received them and, if so, what their responses were. To be honest, the vast majority of those are best forgotten, but a few are ones I sincerely hoped would succeed in being actual communications — the beginnings of conversations. The following is one of those.
Dorothy Counts' first day of high school, 1957. Photo credits: Douglas Martin/A.P. Photos. [source]
October 29, 2008
Dear Ms. Counts-Scoggins,
I came across a photo of you this evening, one chosen by Vanity Fair for their list of the "25 Best News Photographs." I can't help but think that these days must, as we approach November 4th, be quite interesting to you. How much things have changed. How much things have still to change ...I was 3 years old the day your photograph was taken there at Harding High School -- a small, quite oblivious white boy living a middle-class life in a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles, California. It would be many years before I even heard about "your world" and many more before I could comprehend how sad and evil some people in it could be. Does it make any sense for this now 54 year old man to say to you how very sorry I am that you should have had to experience the things you did all those years ago? Does it help at all to know that when I look at that photo and see the hurt in your eyes that I want to be able to reach back in time and protect you, just as I would one of my two daughters, and to say how proud of you I am?Perhaps, but I think September of 1957 probably seems like many lifetimes ago for you -- that going back is not that productive a thing to do. Time does what it does, we become who we become and we live in the times we find ourselves in. I truly wish that for you the time we are living in is one of hopes fulfilled, at least to some degree. I want to believe, I guess, that some great imbalance is about to be righted somewhat and that you will find some peace in that. I would like to know that you know in your heart that you are part of what's unfolding -- that there is a connection to your courage way back then and what is happening in this election 51 years later.Kind Regards, Paul Pomeroy
In searching for something I'd blogged about several years ago I came across this, written back in March of 2005.
Sometimes I just start thinking about stuff that it would be better not to, like the semantic spaces that got cheated out of a perfectly good name when blog became the by-popular-consent, de-facto name for weblogs.
Would anyone be surprised or disappointed if, instead, blog had ended up meaning:
The groggy feeling that accompanies complete boredom: I was feeling kind of bloggy all afternoon.
The lumps that form in eggnog that has spoiled: He didn’t notice the blogs until he’d already taken a big gulp of Aunt Bertha’s now infamous holiday eggnog.
A clog that causes a sink to back up: Finally, and with a rather loud slurping noise, the sink was unblogged.
The act of slogging your way through a boring task: After a full day of blogging through year-end financial reports, Shelly was ready to scream!
A blinding fog: Driving in bloggy weather can be extremely hazardous.
Stale ale (gross grog?): Oh Yuck! How can you drink this blog?
Okay…, so maybe I have a little too much time on my hands today.