Ironwoods in Bloom

 This morning coming out of the rear gate of the complex, I was greeted by the spectacle of the ironwood across the street full in bloom.

"Right on schedule," I thought, remembering the date. I had learned several years back that the second week of May sees the flowering of the pink blossoms. 

Driving towards the stoplight at Pima I perused the remaining patch of undeveloped desert and saw more pink blossoms. It was a satisfying beautiful spectacle, augmented by the fact that I appreciated them in the context of the mechanical rotation of the solar calendar. I made a note that I should go out to visit my ironwood, the ironwood, which once had a secret that I protected.

Stump Tables

 Very quiet on campus this morning, even after I slept in a little and came in later than usual. It is break between spring and summer sessions. The bagelry in the student union was just setting up, its light still dark. Probably best as I didn't need a bagel, but was seeking the comfort of ritual.

The only activity, besides the ongoing maintenance of the Cape Verde Pines, were little hints on ongoing multiple commencement exercises in progress. The parking lot of the performance arts center had signs indicating my usual entrance was exit only today, presumably for the increased load.

Next to the Union, a section of the metal tables was cordoned off and the tables had white tablecloths, in anticipation of the event. Nearby the stumps of the date palms that had been cut down at waist height were covered with a black cloth to make a small high stable, with flowers on top. A nice effect.

The Arabian

Today for the first time I was at the Arabian Library, a branch of the Scottsdale Public Library. I had recently gotten my library card and used it immediately online to place a couple books on hold, which were at the Appaloosa branch. 

It's a short drive from me, just on the other side of Bell Road, just to the east east side of Westworld. In fact just for fun I cut through Westworld on the secret through-streets that get you to the Arabian. 

The Arabian is a very nice library, built in classic Scottsdale courtyard style. Metallic, rust-covered, and angular.

I picked up my two holds and then decided I might as well look around. I noticed the books that were displayed first as you come in the door were about Jewish history month. Front and center was a biography of Mel Brooks. If I didn't have a ton of other material right now, I'd think about it.

The library had several nice indoor spaces connected together in an interesting and appealing floor plan. Very dim inside the children's room. Felt very cavelike.

Regular nonfiction in traditional stacks, thankfully. I found the science section and added two books more I found there, including Quantum Physics for Dummies.

I tried to do self checkout, but I didn't have my required pin code. So I had the librarian scan them. Three weeks on all of them.

A very pleasant outing for a Sunday. I will go back to the Arabian any time, and I must also see the Appaloosa. 

A Windy Day

 The hot season having arrived, this morning I migrated my morning coffee drinking out to the porch, sitting in the rocking chair and listening to the howling of a strong wind. Where does such a wind come from? It seems out of place. As such the temperature is mild on the porch.

As I drink my coffee I pick up the copy of George Saunders short stories that arrived from Thriftbooks a couple days ago, and which I placed on the patio table just for thisv ery moment.. I think it came from Thriftbooks, at least. One loses track. I bought it alongside a copy of The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor. The latter I started last night before bed, reading "The Geranium," which turns out to have been her first published story, written at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1946. I completed it all before falling asleep, which is an accomplishment for me, as often reading knocks me out right away. I liked her description of the main character's image of New York City before he went to live there with his daughter. It reminded me of the kind of image I had had of that place before I went to live there and experience it first hand.

George Saunders---I have a close friend, or formerly close friend, in Portland who loves George Saunders. He has read all of his works and eagerly awaits new ones. Or least he did as of the last time I checked. I know this from his social media posts back when I was on social media. 

I have this idea that I read George Saunders I will understand my friend's mentality more and maybe we can be friends again. So I bought Saunders collection CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. This morning over coffee I read the title story, which was a little over twenty pages. 

My friend is a voracious reader, though, so who knows what I'll learn about, when I see him. Probably many authors I've never heard of. I look forward to that.

One Hundred Degrees Fahrenheit

 Yesterday, Friday, was what I consider to have been the first day of "oppressive heat." It is when one goes outside and experiences the absurd sensation of feeling like one is being roasted in an oven. Perhaps the oven is on the low setting, like yesterday, but it is still like being roasted in an oven.

In June, the temperature is likely to achieve what I call the "11 handle"---temperatures in Fahrenheit in the 110s.  June is typically the hottest month of the year here, the peak of the "dry heat." Later in the summer, in July and August, it slightly more humid and thus the temperature doesn't get quite as high, but it is just as uncomfortable, if not more so, because the slight amount of humidity makes it hellish. In June it is as dry as anything you experience.

In June 2016, our first summer here.it hit 120 in parts of the valley. We were living up in Fountain Hills, which is at almost two thousand feet, several hundred feet higher than the valley, so it's inherently cooler. Still it got within a few degrees of the 12 handle. Everything just shuts down. Planes at the Phoenix airport could not take off because the atmosphere is not dense enough at that temperature. Or least that's what I heard. Signs goes up on businesses saying they cannot operate at that temperature. The air conditioning breaks down easily and at that point one must evacuate the premises. 

Our place there had a pool. During those really hot days, it was almost impossible to stay in the sun, so swimming was difficult, but I thought I'd go for a dip. The water was like a warm bath, but not yet uncomfortable. The pool thermometer was about ninety. I had to keep myself in the water at least up to the neck. 

What made it unbearable was the reflection of the sun off the water, which was impossible to avoid. It was like being in a solar oven as well as a regular oven at the same time. I could stay in the pool only by using by silver Golite backpacker's umbrella, which is very light by design, holding it in one hand white it rested on the water, so it made a shelter for me from the sun. Only then could I relax in the water

At those temperatures if there is any breeze at all, it feels like one is standing next to a bar-b-cue grill. One feels the breath of Hell in the hot blast on one's face. 

Of course if you out on the trail then, you are likely to cause physical harm to yourself die without extreme caution. It's the heat equivalent of Antarctica.

Today it was only 100, though, at the hottest part of the day. We've reached the 10 handle. But it felt slightly oppressive. So we have 20 degrees to go to get the "12 handle". The me of five years ago would have said, "bring it on, I love it." The current me is less enthusiastic about, in part because of personal health issues, but also because it doesn't seem so novel anymore. But maybe this year I can embrace it. Of course it might be a big bust and the best we get is 113 on a day or two. Life will go on.

Pure Imagination

Note I originally wrote a longer version of this, but in making a minor edit I accidentally erased a huge chunk of the middle and couldn't restore it properly, so I pulled it off to rewrite it, but I think I'll just post what remains, as it is probably better this way anyway. It included a link to this cool video about why the song is so beautiful, in terms of music theory, which I barely understand.

I had been thinking of the late Gene Wilder, a great actor, and I found myself singing this song the other morning as I drove into work, fumbling over the lyrics I remembered. For some reason it punches me in the gut like no other song. and takes me to some special place from my early childhood that makes me want to break down and even sob with a collage of dredged up emotions, as if everything lost and mourned can be remembered and regained in some magical way. I can imagine myself croaking out this song with my last breath on my deathbed.

As I sat behind the wheel of my car in my usual spot the ASU parking lot, I tried to think why it was so emotional impactful. I realized that the entire depth of the song comes from the first line: "Come with me.."  The song is not just an appeal to the power of imagination. It's an invitation to a shared world of imagination. If you grasp this, you will get the whole idea of the movie itself---a lonely, broken, wounded man with a vision of a world from his imagination, who made that vision of that into reality, and who yearns to share it ("Traveling in the world of my creation"). But he can share it only with those worthy enough to accept this gift. So he issues invitations, seemingly random, but somehow we learn that maybe they aren't so random after all. One by one his invitees prove themselves unworthy and are expelled from his imaginative vision. At the end, there is only one left, to whom he will put the biggest test of all. When the last surviving candidate succeeds, only then do we see the Wonka character, the inviter, instantly reveal himself and his true intentions all along. 

I think this all reveals something profound---that the most satisfying aspect of imagination is that it can be shared with others. As children we learn this, and attempt this, but we are often beaten down by rejections of our creative imaginations from others. We learn to be cynical, to keep them to ourselves, protecting ourselves from the pain we experience trying to invite others. At some stage we may stop inviting even our own selves to these worlds. 

If I could criticize contemporary children's books and movies, my impression is that they focus too much on empowering of children to use their imagination for themselves, something that can ultimately be only marginally satisfying in my estimation. You can do anything. Stand on your own and roar. Conquer the world. Blah blah blah. Seriously, it's about conquest? Somehow I always hated those messages as a kid. They felt manipulative to me. I sensed they were what adults wanted us kids to think about, so adults could pat themselves on the back and feel good about themselves for molding kids the right way.  All the while it felt like a form of power and control to me. OK, it is I who am cynical, but there is something almost demonic in the frequent adult obsession about molding the way kids play. 

The sharing of this imaginative vision with others is a nuance that is not as easily packaged into political and religious ideologies of any kind. It is potentially deeply painful step in which one might risk one's entire self image.  

On an archetypal level, it the basis of all courtship and romance. The young man falls in love with a young woman and imagines a future with her. He invites her to take his hand step into that vision with him, for the rest of their lives potentially. This is a process that seems to have broken down in our culture. 

Likewise, that risk is the basis of all art, one could argue, whether paintings, novels, movies, etc.---an invitation to share a vision. It is how one becomes a creator. 

From that risk it comes potentially the ultimate form of un-aloneness, and perhaps the most deeply satisfying thing on earth we can experience.  If you want to see paradise, simply look around a view it, sings Wonka, as he himself looks around, seemingly alone in this thoughts as the others ignore him. Yet we see he is viewing them enjoying his imaginative creation. Paradise.

Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three...

Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin with a spin
Traveling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world there's nothing to it

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be

From the words you might think Wonka is simply advocating the power of escapist fantasy for personal satisfaction. Anything you want to, do it. 

But his actions belie this interpretation, as I mentioned above. His paradise is the sharing of the vision. He changes the world outside himself by inviting others into his (including his invitation of the Oompa Loompas as refugees under his protection). 

So finally, here's the original scene from the movie. 

Would you like to hear my tale? I will tell you, the whole thing if you want. But my invitation is conditional. With each word I tell you I will be watching your eyes, to see if you are with me. If not, I will not bother to continue, and you will never notice as my voice trails off and we switch subjects. But if you pass my test, and you laugh and cry at the places that I thought only I could laugh and cry, and at other places that you yourself discover in my tale, places of pain and joy that I had not even noticed, then you will earn a kind of trust from me, one that I yearn to give to someone. Then I may let you imagine it along with me, and if you have a story, and you invite me into it, I might help you imagine it too, if you want, and maybe our imaginations will even mingle together.

AI has come for me

Rumble now has AI to generate automated summaries of podcasts, or least on the Badlands Channel. I feel naked and exposed.

In the first-ever Friday night edition of Spellbreakers, Matt Trump kicks off the weekend with a deeply personal and freewheeling exploration of nostalgia, geography, politics, and classic Americana. Broadcasting solo, Matt uses the episode as a canvas to reminisce on his college days in Oregon, share reflections on his life as a physicist and AI researcher at Arizona State, and explore the cultural and political shifts unfolding in both Oregon and America at large.

With the state of Oregon as a central character, Matt takes listeners on a tour of the Willamette Valley, recounts the strange symbolism of Oregon’s state capitol, and advocates for unity over secession in the face of eastern Oregon’s push to join Idaho. He blends this civic reflection with commentary on Trump’s evolving relationship with Israel, race and free speech in America, and the importance of cultural memory.
In a highlight moment, Matt dives into a musical tribute to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, analyzing its symbolism, romantic energy, and portrayal of mid-century American ideals. He even plays the film’s opening number, “Bless Your Beautiful Hide,” as part of his broader campaign to remind listeners of the joy and courage in American storytelling.
Backed by sponsors BlockTrust IRA and Safe Streets, and peppered with audience shoutouts, movie trivia, and TCM reverence, this episode feels like an intimate fireside chat, equal parts homespun history, media commentary, and heartland revivalism.
Spellbreakers Friday nights have arrived, and Matt’s determined to make them count.

Note: "Classic Americana" would have been a better and more appropriate name for my show, but I'm stuck with this one, which is fine. It was suggested by my erstwhile cohost, who, unbeknownst to me when we came up with the show, was banking on turning me into a Flat Earther, and against the physics community at large---or at least exposing me and taking my scalp as a witless defender of the establishment. 

Library of Memories

 My thoughts while waking in the wee small hours this morning turned to remembering the public library in Fort Collins, my hometown in Colorado. They were mostly sad and wistful thoughts, because I have such good memories of that place, stretching over many years, such as going there with my mother when I was junior high school, and sitting in the car out on the curb with my books waiting for her to come out. More significantly, when I returned to live in Fort Collins in 2005, I found myself visiting the library quite a lot for research I was doing with a friend. My library card got a lot of use there. By then they had begun using a computerized system for check-out, and one could renew books online. But they still had the old card catalog available if you wanted to use it, sitting in its familiar place at the top of the stairs to the second floor. The reference section was the same.I knew where the newspaper microfiche was, and the old city directories. 

One of the first things I did upon return back then was go on a spate of reading books I had been assigned in college, or attempted to read in the past, but did not finish. I was particularly lonely during those years, being divorced and in my forties, and the library was a comfort, in part because it connected me to the past.

Already by the time I had returned in 2005, it had begun to transform into being not only a library but a day shelter for the homeless---a novel issue in Fort Collins at the time. In high school, one had to go to a big east coast city to see that. But it was not a serious problem yet, as it would become for almost urban libraries in the years ahead. I remember walking by one of the free use computers being used by a gentleman there and seeing porn on the screen. It was a watershed movement. Even if I were going to look at porn, which I don't, the idea of watching it in full view of people passing by in a public library was scandalous to me.

The last time I was there, which was three years ago, we stayed in a boutique hotel in downtown (something that was never a convenience in the old days).  We walked over to the library. I was excited to go back there, because I was looking forward to the comfort of the memories. Inside I found the library utterly changed to point that I don't recognize it. The interior had been completely remodeled. Gone were most of the stacks, the collection dispersed to other new branches on the edge of town, with modern buildings and huge parking lots---much more convenient that driving into the narrow streets of Old Town. The remaining stack were sparse and only chest-high. Never again would one be able to wander through the narrow aisles feeling the books towering over one's head. No doubt that was hard to surveil. Who knows what was going on there.

What had been the entire fiction wing was removed and replaced by comfortable chairs for reading and using one's laptop. The whole place now felt like a bookstore, with pods of books on display highlighting the interests and, of course, the political causes, of the staff.

The old historical reference section, including  the city directories, was removed entirely and relocated to a newly built museum center a mile away, accessible only by car. I was told the materials there were available to the public for two days a week in the afternoons, or by special appointment. It would never again be something one could do spontaneously while visiting the library. Nobody ever thinks of these things but me.

Of course the old card catalog was no where to be found. The younger librarians on the staff had probably never used one. I asked one of the librarians what had become it, as I felt it was a valuable piece of history, that captured the collection of the library at a certain epoch. She didn't know. I could tell it didn't occur to her that it had any meaning. "I think part of it is being used as decorations in the garden of the one of the head librarians." 

I walked out there devastated, feeling as if I had come back to find the place ransacked by vandals. There was no continuity with the past. I don't think I will ever go back there. Why would I? There is nothing left of what I remember.

Does that matter? I think it does. A public library should be a continuity in time. I was glad at least that I did not live in Fort Collins while this was going on, and have to witness it happening. 

Now in my mind, when I think of the library, I have in mind two overlapping images, one of the old and one of the new. They flip  back and forth in my mind. 

All of the updates and remodeling---no doubt they all made sense and were quite reasonable to accommodate the needs of an evolving community, as they say. The removal of my favorite historical materials was done in part to protect them, of course. But I wish they had found a way to preserve it all, the way it used to be, as a living archive of the way libraries once were  In my mind I want to keep the old version alive (with porn filters, however)..

From AI to Physics

 Today I volunteered to give a talk on AI for a conference on the ASU campus in two weeks. It will be in front of people who know more about AI than I do, and probably more than I ever care to. 

My boss, the project lead of the AI Acceleration team, was in the lab as he is on Tuesdays. I had gotten the email about reserving all day on Thursday the 22nd for the aforementioned conference.  I had no idea what it was about and asked my boss. He asked everyone in the lab if anyone wanted to give a talk for it. "It doesn't have to be about our projects," he said. "It can be anything about AI." 

There were no takers. 

He looked at me. "Matt, you want to give a talk about AI."

It was one of those moments where my impulse to say "yes" to a random idea kicked in. "Sure," I told him. "I love public speaking." 

So just like that I was now giving a talk about AI in two weeks. What on earth can I talk about?

On the drive home, I mulled it over. I barely know many details of the project we are working on at the lab. Anything about AI in general seemed ridiculous, given the background of the audience.

Finally when I got home, I realized that, well heck, I am a physicist, after all. I bet no one else there can say that. A moment's reflection made me remember my ongoing project to use ChatGPT to help write my talk and paper for next year's IARD conference.  I have barely begun that, but who cares. In the meantime I designed my own self-study course to relearn quantum field theory from scratch and finally master it after thirty years of frustration. I hadn't begun it in earnest yet, as I waiting for the textbooks to arrive, that ChatGPT suggested for me. The last one arrived today from Thriftbooks. This is perfect, I thought. It's exactly what the entire project at the lab is about---using AI for traditional classroom learning. 

Of course, now it means I actually need to initiate that program of study I mentioned. This means in a weird way that I will now be doing physics as part of my day job at a university. Somehow I managed to make that happen. Well, maybe. Let's not get ahead ourselves, Matt. 

I am excited about the idea, even though it would mean a lot of work. My switch from dread to excitement brings up the pessimistic suspicion that maybe my boss wasn't serious or that he'll forget he asked me. I am always on the lookout for that kind of thing, as if my very excitement over something will generate a cosmic force against it. That's a core part of mentality---never get too excited about anything happening. Be detached. Things seem to work out better when I suppress my excitement and remain indifferent, as if I need to fool even myself that I don't care. I was just explaining this to a friend of mine recently, in regard to some past behavior of mine.

But I am excited about it, dadgummit. I can't help myself.  I want to give an AI conference talk about using AI to write a physics conference talk. Tomorrow I will send a message to my boss confirming it. For tonight at least, I'm going to be excited over it.

Postcards of Rain

 Grey clouds this morning, and a bit chilly.  Coming down Broadway to campus, the rain begins hitting the windshield, almost enough to think about using the wipers. When I open the car door in the parking lot, I smell the delicious residue of the shower.

As I walk past the student union, I see the water drops that have lingered on the square outdoors tables. My marveling gaze follows them as I pass them by them, as if I'm a tourist in a national park. They should sell postcards of this, I think, proof that this actually can happen on a May morning.

1:28 AM

 Thoughts on God being Love itself, as per Church doctrine, and how each of us is loved beyond our comprehension by God.

Also, I think I have a dentist appointment today.

Canary Island Pines

Woke up feeling down today about my work, especially the meaningfulness of my day job, grasping for a bit of hope. After bagel and coffee on the terrace: what if I produce a laminated study guide for the most advanced physics topics, just for my own amusement? I could base them off the table of contents of the books I just ordered for my self-study course. 

A tiny little sign, obviously placed by someone with much better eyesight than me, and located ten feet up the trunk and behind a small retaining wall, told me the trees outside the Danforth Mediation Chapel are canary island pines. 

1:20 AM

 After last night I have come to conclusion that I must like waking up at exactly 1:20 AM every night, in pitch black, with a lingering wakefulness that lets me think in the utter stillness of the night without any sound. There's a peace and clarity I don't get at other times of the day. I'm almost beginning to look forward to it.

Temperate Spring

 It has felt like a temperate spring. Last night it was cloudy and there were drops of rain on the kitchen window. It's now the fifth of May and I have not yet switched from my office to the outdoor patio for my early morning prayer and mediation. At least I am not still running the space heater, but as of last week I was still turning it on for a few minutes to warm my legs.

My Cookbook of Essentials

One of things enjoyed about my traveling days, especially in the early days while I was camping, was how life became reduced to essentials like shelter and food. It was pleasing to live in this state of being actually, and I feel lucky I got to live it. As AI takes over, I fall back more and more to remembering these things.

One learns a lot about these necessities while setting up a tent every night in various conditions of terrain and weather. Can I stay dry and warm tonight? 

Making a campfire properly is something you hopefully learn to do quickly. I usually tried to make a fire, to keep me company. It was far better than television. The routine of buying wood, say from a roadside cash drop box, prevalent in parts of the country, or from a country store, became one of my daily chores. 

One learns to savor the primal warmth that comes from the heat on one''s face as one stoops to place another log into flames. I could then sit on my three-legged camp stool and think of tomorrow's destination.

Can I feed myself? Roadside takeout burger stands in small towns on the way to state park, visited an hour before sunset, are the gold standard.

My Jetboil stove carried me through many evenings with premade meals, and in the mornings for instant coffee. I rarely cooked over the campfire.  If so, I usually resorted to Boy Scout style of wrapping meat and vegetables into aluminum foil and dropping them into the fire itself. I would need more in my arsenal now, maybe cocktail weenies wrapped in pepperoni. One never knows what is available at those camp stores, which are always the most comforting places in the world. 

A good cooler is a must unless you want to carry sandwich meats and cheese for sandwiches, as well as the great luxury of half and half, which is best both for coffee and over granola in the morning. A small cutting board for preparing such sandwiches in parking lots is a must . Filling the chest with ice was another daily chore, as well as draining it out the back passenger seat of the car.

And let us not forget the citronella candle to place on the picnic table, and spare batteries for the headlamp. I miss the one I used to have, that had real plastic gels of different colors that one could slide to make the light red, green, or blue. I lost it somewhere in a move and the new ones are all digital. One changes colory by pressing buttons in some weird order I never mastered. When I wanted red, I got flashing blue or blinding white lot. The tactical nature of switching the old gels felt like one was switching the reality of the world. Why is everything awesome taken away like that?

If I took any road trip now, I would hope I would have the strength of will to travel this way again and resort to motels as little as possible.

The Human Redoubt

redoubt (plural redoubts) noun 

1. A small, temporary, military fortification.
2. A reinforced refuge; a fort.
3. A place of safety or refuge. 

This morning my mind was activated to a long-term fantasy I have heard regarding a creative enterprise, which is the production of laminated field guides and study guides. I have long been fascinated by these as part of my general interest in acquiring information and knowledge in a quick and efficient way. Throughout my life I have been stymied in certain educational endeavors, and being the arrogant man that I am, I tend to put the blame on the educational materials. Were they better, I always think, I would get this right away. Why does it have to be so hard?

Since the time I taught college physics, I have made my own such materials for my students, ones I distributed for my lectures, often designed to be accompanied by my overhead projector lectures in an interactive way. I actually learned a lot about how to do this by going to those free "no money down" real estate seminars in hotel ballrooms back in the day (early 1990s). I was impressed how in a few hours, they could teach you everything you needed to know about mortgages, equity, title insurance, etc. Their motivation was strong---they wanted to upsell you to a full cassette tape course at the end of the day.

It opened my mind to how much better instruction could be, and from that point onward, I made it a point to teach physics in a way that even students who thought it to be an impossible subject would find themselves, despite themselves, understanding the subjects and being able to solve certain problems.

In those days, I often thought about starting a business distributing materials to college students on how to "hack" your physics and mathematics classes. Basically how to get an A in the course despite any background, and thinking you're a dummy. Physics was actually very hard for me. That's why I pursued it. I wanted to study the hardest and most challenging subject, and I carried that all the way to getting a doctoral degree and working with some of the most brilliant minds on the planet. So I knew how it was to be frustrated by it, and how to overcome that in a way that someone with natural talent would never know.

How and why I got away from that is a long story, but not that interesting for the moment. What has stayed with me is the concept of hacking knowledge. Those laminated guides---everyone has seen them for sale---are fascinating to me because they are designed just for that purpose, to give you quick access to certain types of knowledge that is not meant to be complete in every detail, but rather to build an architecture of knowledge in your head that can be fleshed out later with the details.  That last phrase is my own, but I truly believe it.

Along those lines, one my hacks regarding taking courses in challenging technical subjects,  such as science and math, is that one should ideally acquire the textbook in advance of starting the class and memorize the table of the contents. I truly believe if I had done this simple step before many of my courses, I would have gotten much more out of them as well as higher grades. You don't have to understand any of the words you memorize. Memorize it like a poem, I tell people. It is like building the framing to a house with studs and beams.  The details will like the furniture you put in it later.

A good laminated guide might furnish this kind of jump start to any field of knowledge. Over the years I have had the impulse to undertake the production of these. I am handy with desktop publishing and not intimated by the design process. In fact that's the part I have always enjoyed and excelled at, going back to when I used my friend's bootleg copy of QuarkXpress on my roommate's little Mac computer to design my physics lecture notes. 

The part that always challenged me was the production process. How do you make these things? How does one distribute and sell them? These questions always weighed heavily on my mind and stopped me from advancing. It goes to my longstanding confusion about the question: how does the world really work, as if everything is a form of secret knowledge passed on from one person to another.

It was four years ago that I underwent by last burst of initiative to try to produce my own line of laminated study guides. I have an infinite number of ideas, more than I could possibly ever pursue. I could occupy myself happily for the rest of my life making them, if I could get started. I decided to actually do research and found myself contacting and visiting printers in downtown Phoenix, discussing what they could produce for me. Not satisfied with the initial answers, I prodded them for leads to find printers who would produce exactly what I wanted, showing them samples from the box of such guides I had acquired over the last thirty years. I was lead to a printer in Alabama who was the only known one to produce certain types of such guides, that fold in a certain way that I found desirable. It is the attention to details that count.

So what happened? Why didn't I follow through. It was certainly because at the time I was out of work and did not have any spare capital to devote to this. Almost certainly this would be a money-losing project at least at first. The people who make money at this are the ones who can do it at huge scale. I am particularly impressed by the woman in Washington state who has made and produced the Language Map laminated guides one has seen for sale in Barnes and Noble for many years in the foreign language sections (foreign language learning is actually a huge area of interest for me in this regard). They are simple and not very useful, but she has been selling them for years. I would love to meet her and shake her hand (and pick her brain too). Part of me just is curious about how people do these things, the way Mr. Rogers visits people at their occupations and learns what they do.

One of many products for sale by author Kristine K. Kershul. One of my heroes. She has made a cottage industry out of this since the 1990s.

What happened in 2021 that made me stop was that I got a full time job that required intense effort for all my waking hours. Now I had the capital to finance the project, but no time or energy, so I put the whole idea on ice and it faded away.

Likewise the next job I had, until last December was even more demanding (and almost killed me). At the moment, I find myself in a much better situation, with an income sufficient to underwrite such a project, even if it doesn't make a cent, as well as the time and energy to devote to it. It feels like a now or never moment. But maybe I just like the idea of it, as a mental exercise that I nurture as a hobby.

But now there is also another thing to think about in this, which is AI. Back in the mid 1990s, one of the reasons I put almost all my original creative educational projects on hold was that the web came along and changed everything. All of my good ideas from the early 1990s, of cassette tapes, were out of date. It was one of the reasons I pursued the career I did after leaving graduate school. I knew the web was the future for publishing and knowledge transfer, and that I needed to learn how to do that if I wanted to think in a creative way. So I pursued that, and mastered it to be sure while earning a living and making money for other people and large corporations, but it was at the cost of never returning to my original plans. And here I am years later, remembering the days when my ideal was to create a cassette tape course that I marketed with fliers on college campuses. 

Tragically, I have learned that the web is actually a terrible way for a lot of education and knowledge transfer. No one could foresee that I think. Yet it is now what people expect. I don't think you can learn most subjects on the way, on the web, in a decent way. Interactive web courses are typically far inferior to classroom instruction. You don't learn things by pointing and clicking with a mouse and keyboard, moving your fingers in that little way. During Covid, I watched the entire world learn these lessons, that I had learned over the last twenty years the hard way and wishing the web had never been invented, so I could be in the world I was meant for. 

The only exception I know about web learning is that there are certain college courses, usually in the Humanities, that are normal college courses that were videotaped in the classroom before the web instruction really took off and changed the way people teach, and how students expect to learn. My quintessential example is Paul Fry of Yale, whose Introduction to the Theory of Literature taught me everything I didn't learn as an undergraduate English major. It is was made in  2009, when lectures were taught pretty much in the same style as when I was in college. This course and others of the same vintage will remain treasures of the old way of doing things. I'm so glad they were made before everything went to hell.

The last couple years it has been a different story. What stalled my momentum a couple years ago was the looming revolution of AI. Since late 2022, it has been obvious to anyone in the know that AI was going to disrupt everything, in ways no one could possibly foresee. I suppose I have been lucky that way to involved in software, since this is the industry that bore the brunt of the disruptions almost immediately. At this point, I've been able to adjust and now make my living actually building AI-centric tools.

But I also use AI, on my job to build AI tools and write code with it, and also in my personal life, in the form of ChatGPT. One of the things that ChatGPT seems to be good at is giving insight into the very questions that used to flummox me the hardest. How does this part of the world actually work? Say, for example, how does one produce and distribute a laminated field guide or study guide? 

I tried that technique out recently in regard to a similar project and found out ChatGPT could give me great insight into things that would have taken me quite a long time to research, down to what type of paper to use, and what types of printers to seek out. It was ready to give me a detailed marketing plan. It's not so much that these need to be the "correct" answers. I am willing to try and fail. I just need a good starting point. ChatGPT turns out to be excellent for this, when it is not hallucinating.

It was almost too overwhelming to have this. I had to take a deep breath after my initial experiment. It removed a lot of my limiting beliefs all at once. It removed many of my excuses. One immeidately finds out what life is like, without those excuses. What do you really want to do?

The AI revolution has barely registered on most people. Most do not know how disruptive it will be in the economy and the job market. In tech, we have know for two years that AI would replace, say, many lawyers. That's low hanging fruit. Lawyers will always be needed because you will need someone to blame when things go wrong. But the junior attorneys who draft documents--forget about it! The need for those will almost disappear completely over the next couple years. And yet this is just now coming into general acknowledgement among lawyers on social media. And this is just one example.

If your job can be replaced by AI, it probably will be. What will be left is what I call the human redoubt---the things that no AI can master. The next few years in large part will be the discovery of this human redoubt. Keep in mind that will have robots soon as well. 

I know I can beat AI hands down at making educational materials that actually work. Whatever attempt it makes, I can take that and make it better, more informative, more practical, and more beautiful.

So maybe I am not as out dated as I thought I was. Maybe this is my time to shine after all, to be part of he Team Human resistance to the end of the world as we know it. Or maybe I'm hallucinating. At minimum, AI has me on the defensive against my own stubborness, having run out of excuses.

Staying Up Late

 Yesterday I was slower than normal all day and accomplished little I might have wanted to do on a Saturday. This was because I stayed up Friday night much later than normal.

I had come home to an empty and quiet apartment, collapsed onto the sofa. I hadn't even opened the blinds in the living room. Such is the benign neglect I fall into, unsupervised. I proceeded to stare off into space for a good amount of time, in thoughts from the drive home. Finally I had decided to watch television. "Hello TCM," I thought to myself. I hadn't watched TCM in many months. When I lived alone, either in an apartment or on the road, it was my constant companion. I once joked that I left it on my t.v. for two years straight without changing the channel.

I barely remember how to turn the television on. Jessica does that, and navigates the channels. The couch is her place. We have three remotes. There is a secret combination that turns on the television, the cable box, and then brings up the cable tv channels. Fortunately I remembered how to do it and soon I had an old Jane Fonda movie from 1963 (Sunday in New York, movie was old, Fonda was very young) which I'd seen before, but I watched it through to the ending, where she marries the right person instead of the wrong person, while preserving her virtue. It was kind of old fashioned movie plot that would go out of fashion very quickly in the next few years, which makes it an interesting cultural product to me of a lost time in civilization.

The evening theme was movies about the paranormal, as the next day was National Paranormal Day (I just looked it up). They started the evening with Poltergeist, which I had seen in 1982 in high school when it first came out. It was very fun to see it again and absorb how much of a satire of 1980s suburban life it is. I noticed many little touches of foreshadowing there were in the opening minutes. That's one of the joys of seeing a movie again, to notice those little touches that you missed the first time. 

The movie ended at eight and usually that would be where I'd start getting ready for bed, but I wound up staying up to 11 to see the next two movies, which culminated in a cult horror movie that came out in 1980, which I didn't see at the time but was very popular and talked about. It's a low budget Canadian feature called Scanners about people with the ability to use their minds to cause psychic attacks on others, to the point of making their heads explode. It was very popular among kids I knew, in the way memes are today, with people imitating various scenes.  [aside: It occurs to me that the whole trope of one's head exploding from being overwhelmed with information, including the gesture using one's hands, and literally an emoji as well, probably originates from a scene in this film.]

I had been left out, and now after forty-five years I could plug that hole in my cultural experience from when I was sixteen, erasing the old wound of being left out, which is a horrible feeling at that age but which today is something I actively pursue. When I used to watch TCM a lot, this was a big motivation---to check off boxes of cultural experiences, not from my youth, but from the history of movies in the 20th century.  I had done it so successfully that now I am an expert in the history of Hollywood cinema. It was passingly pleasing to do that once again. 

It was worth watching for the street footage of Montreal in that era, especially the opening scene in the subway, which has a distinctive French-Canadian look.  It reminds me of Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, which is full of escalator tubes and feels very foreign. It was worth watching for that alone. I wonder what it looks like today.

"Scanners uses Montreal’s modernist architecture as a means of portraying a dystopian future. As a movie about the next step in human evolution, the film treats the institutional qualities of architecture as dehumanizing. Similar elements are also featured in Cronenberg’s other films but here, they also stand firm as representations of a corporate-controlled evolutionary future." source I visited Montreal once in 1996 and actually went to a baseball game at the old Olympic Stadium, just for the experience of it.

As I went to bed finally at 11, I had plugged my cultural experience hole. I slept in the next day to half past six, when it was fully light out. Being out of cream, I ordered breakfast on my phone app at the McDonalds nearby and walked over to it. I felt as decadent and slovenly as I have felt in years. 

When I was done with my breakfast in McDonalds I lingered just to be around people. I decided I wanted another cup of coffee.  Should I order it with my phone app right inside McDonalds itself? My app didn't seem to want to cooperate so I went up to the counter, which was unmanned. I tried to use one of the electronic kiosks. They have an entirely new interface and the simple act of ordering a cup of coffee with cream required five screens and ten button pushes. When I was finally successful, I believed, I looked for but could not find a button that would allow me to check and pay. There was only a button to "log in". Log into what? 

I decided that by gosh I'm going to order at the counter like we did back in 1982, as if it's my god-given right, and fortunately there was someone there to take my order the old fashioned way. I mentioned my frustration with the kiosk, which to be honest was so severe that it would prevent me from ever trying again. I learned from the manager that it's a new interface that synchronizes with one's phone app, which apparently is the way you are supposed to order now in all cases. I was supposed to hit the button "view order" and then it would allow me to check out. Of course! So obvious! The whole thing felt like an artifact of the breakdown of civilization, the effort it took to get a cup of coffee at McDonalds.

Elsewhere

Yesterday afternoon driving up the 101 from Tempe, I look north at the traffic and the city, and I think how at that moment, in this metropolis of five million people, I am utterly alone.

Jessica is out of town for a weekend conference. Her parents--mother and step-father--are, like so many of their neighbors in their park in Mesa, off on their annual extended summer RV tour.  

With that, I am basically a man driving in a car to an apartment which will be empty, in a complex where, despite six and half years of residence, is completely unknown to all my neighbors except by vague recognition of coming up and down the stairs or to the mailbox. Even the folks who staff the complex office would not recognize me at this point.

Who would have a beer with me, this evening, if I were looking for that? Maybe one former co-worker, but his is in his twenties and already I have disappointed in trying to maintain contact with him. My current co-workers are all Indian young men, who have their own enclosed society. 

I strain to think of one person who would recognize me, who would talk to me. My dentist? Perhaps. He lives next to the woman who wrote the Twilight series books and attends the same Mormon church as her. I suppose if I too were Mormon, perhaps I wouldn't have this problem. 

I think I don't want to feel at home here. I don't want roots here. I think about this as I drive, that if I were truly by myself here I would pick up and leave as quickly as possible. I'd leave the entire state of Arizona. First I'd go down to Tucson and say goodbye to my aunt and uncle, whom I haven't seen in many years anyway.

In the past I would have felt sorry for myself, but I am not sorry for myself. I simply note it as a fact. I think, however, that most people I know would not be in the situation, almost nine years after moving here from Portland, where I still know many people who would have coffee or a beer with me.  

Where would I go? That's easy, in some ways. The same answer as ever, whenever I have found in a similar situation: elsewhere. 

How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?

The one about autocorrect sort of hits home, actually.

Me: I'm looking for some humorous jokes that are basically: "how can you tell someone is human and not an AI?"

Here’s a batch of light, humorous “how can you tell someone is human and not an AI?” jokes you might enjoy:

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
Because they’ll say “I read the terms and conditions” — and you know they didn’t.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They forget why they walked into a room, but remember an embarrassing moment from 15 years ago at 3 a.m.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They open 12 tabs to research something and end up watching cat videos.

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💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
When they say “I’ll just check one more thing before bed” — and it’s suddenly 2 a.m.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They make typos when texting — and autocorrect still makes it worse.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They spend 10 minutes looking for their phone… while holding it.

---

Want me to tailor some of these to a specific profession or situation, like programmers, students, or office workers?

Me: How about making them darker?

Sure — here’s a darker, more biting batch of “how can you tell someone is human and not an AI?” jokes with a bit more existential or bleak edge:

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They know what they should be doing — and choose self-sabotage anyway.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They’re haunted by regrets AIs can’t even simulate.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They know life is short — but still waste years scrolling through things they’ll never remember.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They feel crushing loneliness even in a room full of people.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They fear dying — and sometimes fear living even more.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
An AI optimizes for goals; a human stares into the void and wonders if goals matter at all.

---

Would you like me to push these even darker or add a more philosophical twist? 

 Me: yes

Alright — here’s a darker and more philosophical set, leaning into existential dread and human contradictions:

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They know they’re going to die — and still waste time pretending they won’t.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They crave meaning in a universe that offers none, and they keep asking anyway.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They carry wounds no algorithm can patch — grief, loss, the ache of time.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They want freedom — but panic when they get to choose.

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💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They love people who hurt them and hurt people they love.

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💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They are programmed by trauma, not code.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They cling to hope even when they believe there’s no hope.

---

If you want, I can craft some specifically in the style of absurdist or existential philosophers (like Camus, Sartre, or Kafka) — would you like that?

Me: yes

Great — here’s a set of “how can you tell someone is human and not an AI?” jokes crafted in the spirit of absurdism, existentialism, and Kafkaesque dread:

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💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They know the universe is indifferent — but they still scream into it, hoping it will answer.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They’re condemned to freedom, as Sartre said — endlessly choosing, knowing no choice can save them.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They push the boulder up the hill every day, like Camus’ Sisyphus — and sometimes pretend it’s enough.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They invent elaborate systems and bureaucracies — then feel trapped by the very cages they built.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They live under the gaze of death — and still pause to wonder what’s for dinner.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They dream of becoming something more — but wake up every morning as the same absurd self.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
Only a human can look at the meaningless abyss and whisper, “Maybe I can love it anyway.”

---

Would you like me to shape a few in the style of a specific thinker, like Nietzsche or Kierkegaard? 

Me: Kierkegaard, please

Absolutely — here’s a set of “how can you tell someone is human and not an AI?” jokes shaped in the spirit of Søren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, who wrote about anxiety, faith, and the absurd paradoxes of human existence:

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
Only a human can stand at the edge of despair — and call it the first step toward faith.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They experience the dizziness of freedom, not just the weight of decision.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They make a leap — not of logic, but of faith, across the absurd gap reason can’t cross.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They wrestle with infinite passion over finite choices.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
An AI can calculate; only a human can tremble before the absurd and still believe.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They know that truth is subjective, but still spend their life anxiously searching for it.

---

Would you like me to craft a few styled after Nietzsche’s darker, more defiant tone as well? 

Me: yes

Here’s a set of “how can you tell someone is human and not an AI?” jokes shaped in the dark, defiant, and often tragic voice of Nietzsche:

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
Only a human stares into the abyss — and knows the abyss might stare back.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
An AI follows commands; a human must invent meaning after God is dead.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They bear the unbearable burden of freedom — and still dream of becoming something greater.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They suffer not because life is cruel, but because they dare to create values in a godless universe.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
Only a human can break under the weight of eternal recurrence — wondering if they would choose their life again.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They dance on the edge of chaos, because to live is to risk destruction.

---

Would you like me to push even further into the tragic or perhaps write a few styled after Kafka’s sense of dread and absurdity? 

Me: Go for it

Here’s a set shaped in Kafka’s dark, absurd, suffocating tone — where life feels like a labyrinth without an exit and the individual is trapped in systems they can neither understand nor escape:

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
Only a human wakes up one day transformed into something they no longer recognize — and goes to work anyway.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They wait for a judgment that never comes, from a court they can never find.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They knock on doors for years, only to learn the door was meant for them all along — and now it’s too late.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
An AI processes data; a human is processed by invisible bureaucracies until they forget what they were fighting for.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They carry the quiet dread that everything they do is both urgently important and entirely meaningless.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
Only a human feels that the world has mistaken them for a criminal — but no one will tell them the crime.

---

Would you like me to blend some of these existential styles into a single “mega set” or write you original ones with your personal tone? 

[ASIDE : Here I decided I had had enough, but later out of curiosity I continued]

Me: ok, let's see what you've got for my personal tone.

Alright — here’s a custom batch, shaped with a darker, reflective tone but also tuned to your sense of humor, which seems to enjoy existential bite, a touch of absurdity, and a bit of bleak honesty:

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They crave connection — and quietly sabotage it the moment it appears.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They laugh at the absurdity of life, even as it quietly breaks them down.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They cling to their carefully built identity, while suspecting deep down it’s just a mask.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They chase meaning through art, work, or love — knowing none of it will save them.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They procrastinate not because they don’t care — but because they care too much and fear they’ll fail.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They carry memories like scars, both proud and ashamed of the weight.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They face the void — and sometimes they laugh, sometimes they cry, but most often, they just keep walking.

---

If you want, I can write a few even sharper, more self-aware, or more absurd — do you want them edged more toward dark comedy or toward raw reflection?

Me: raw reflection

Here’s a set shaped purely for raw reflection — stripped of comedy, leaning into the quiet, exposed truths of being human:

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They carry silent grief no one else can see, woven into the fabric of their ordinary days.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They ache for love but fear being truly seen.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They live inside a body they did not choose, moving through time they cannot stop.

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💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They remember moments they wish they could change — knowing they never will.

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💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They long for peace but sabotage it with restless longing.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They endure the tension between who they are and who they thought they’d be.

---

💬 How can you tell someone is human and not an AI?
They hold onto hope not because it’s rational, but because without it, they fear they will disappear.

---

If you want, I can write you a few in the first person — even more intimate and personal. Would you like me to? 

[ASIDE: Uncle! Uncle!] 

..Programmed by trauma, not code. OUCH!

Duet for Birdsong and Electric Kettle

 There are days, most days in fact, that I settle for a single interesting observation about the world. Sometimes I get it first thing in the morning.

Waking before 5 a.m., I forced myself up out of bed and began the coffee making process. Outside to the west was pitch black. The electric kettle sprang to life with the press of my finger. All was still and quiet in the dark. The patio door was open, with the screen door closed. There was almost a slight chill.

Against my normal habit, and partly from the chill, I went back to bed and crawled under the warm covers while the water boiled, knowing the beep-beeping kettle would serve as an alarm to keep me from falling back to sleep. 

As I put my head on the pillow I heard not only the simmering from the next room, but also a birdsong intertwined into it. 

What bird is that, that begins singing at the first sign of daylight? I asked myself. It was pleasant to hear its song, coming in five seconds articulated bursts, overlaid on top of the simmering, as if they had started at exactly the same time, and in some kind of orchestrated tempo, like a flute on top of an oboe.

Whatever bird it was, it had the morning to itself for the moment. Drinking my coffee in my office I could hear it through the window. Probably I've been hearing it every morning and finally noticed it. 

Roadrunner Jokes

Roadrunners are truly majestic birds. I've seen one enough times by now in the wild to develop some personal knowledge, which feels pleasing to me. How privileged is it to know the habits of the roadrunner?'

Indeed they move swiftly on the ground. Seeing one scamper down the road will tell you how they got their name. They will take to the air if need be, using their speed as momentum in the air, but they only for a short trip of necessity, and their soaring is not particularly swift but a gentle arc to land at somewhere not to distant.. If they can get to brush, you will not see them again. They will use the brush like a subway system and pop up who knows where, far away from where they entered. That's an ability I somewhat envy. 

I was thinking of jokes about these birds.  I didn't have any in mind, and not being creative about this kid of thing, I wondered how ChatGPT might do on such a question. At first it wanted to make everything about the famous cartoon roadrunner. Everything involved either "Beep! Beep!" (a sound I've never heard a real roadrunner make) or a coyote*, or an ACME product.  I told it to knock that off and give me ones about real roadrunners.

Here's how it did. Judging by the answers we humans have nothing to worry about for a while. 

         Why did the roadrunner refuse to buy a car?

Because he’s already got zero to sixty — on foot!

---

Why did the roadrunner get a promotion at work?

Because no one else could handle high-speed deadlines!

---

Why don’t roadrunners ever get lost?

Because they always follow the fastest route!

Later I tried another LLM, Claude Sonnet to be precise. I got these. The one about the rattlesnake isn't that bad, actually. The one about the cactus is my favorite because it is absolute nonsense and makes me laugh. 

Why don't roadrunners ever get speeding tickets? Because they always run faster than the desert patrol!

What's a roadrunner's favorite type of music? Anything with a quick beat!

How do roadrunners greet each other in the morning? "Beep beep! Ready, set, go!"

Why are roadrunners terrible at hide and seek? They always leave X-shaped tracks wherever they go!

What did the rattlesnake say after trying to catch a roadrunner? "I guess fast food isn't for everyone!"

Why did the roadrunner start a delivery business? Because it guaranteed the fastest service in the desert!

What's a roadrunner's favorite sport? Track and field—emphasis on the track!

How does a roadrunner place an order at a restaurant? "I'll have whatever's fastest!"

Why don't roadrunners need GPS? They already know all the fastest routes through the desert!

What did the cactus say to the roadrunner? "Slow down, you're making me dizzy!"


*Bizarrely I have seen a roadrunner and a coyote together, one following the other, about a minute apart, on an animal trail that used to run through the previously undeveloped desert. I thought I was hallucinating. I have also seen a chicken cross the road, for what it's worth.

Tree Work Ahead

 Such was the sign, black block letters on orange, that I saw propped up on the pavement this morning as I came around the bushes onto Orange Street, which is not a street but a pedestrian mall, much of which is now under the PowerParasol solar panel shade coverings that I love so much.

Behind it I could see the orange cones that the work crew had set up. Their white mechanical work crane reached upwards into the narrow pines outside the Danforth Chapel, just where the PowerParasol comes to an end. 

I drew forward to inspect the work, nervous they might be doing something drastic to the trees. It appeared they were taking down a few dead branches as maintenance. After six weeks of coming onto campus I can hardly claim any ownership over this place, but the Danforth Chapel already feels like it partially belongs to me. I go inside almost every day, somedays in the mornings, somedays in the afternoon on the way to my car. Somedays over my midday break. It is small but bigger than tiny.  The name was recognizable to me as being the same as structure on the campus of Colorado State University. It turns out there are Danforth Chapels scattered all over the country, mostly on college campuses, a gift of a benefactor in the early Twentieth Century. They are all different. A few have been demolished by now. The one on the ASU campus sits in a beautiful focal point at the edge of the solar panel ramada over Orange Street. The shade structure casts a beautiful shade over the plaza there and from where I sit, it almost looks like the chapel is under the shade structure, but it is not. It reminds me of Burning Man.

Only once when going into the chapel did I find other people there---what looked to be a class or youth group up on the front steps of what passes for a sanctuary. At all other times it is my solitary space, even as hundreds of students might pass outside in the plaza next to the library.

The chapel is non-denominational, with no overt signs of any particularly creed inside, even more spartan than a typical airport chapel (the exploration of which are a hobby of mine), or a hospital chapel, where people might come to beg for their lives or the lives of their loved ones. The sole condescension to faith are the stained glass windows in the front over the bare lectern (no altar) and over the door in back. At certain times of the morning, the morning light floods through the rear window making a pattern on the floor. The design of the windows has three blue birds, apparently gulls with their wings spread, against a sky of yellow and yellow. It is a very pleasant design. It is tricky to design such a place---inclusive, non-offensive, yet somehow meaningful in a personal sense. It's that third part that is hardest, perhaps. Individual faith can be off-putting to those who do not share it.  We seek to be around others whom we know will understand our expressions of faith. In America, this has always been a tricky issue, even more so these days.

On this morning, I do not go inside the chapel. I watch the workers up in the pine branches then move on to get my bagel and coffee and sit across from the library as I do now. The sign I mentioned---I had to take a photo of it for my collection. There is something about plain block lettering that makes it so appealing. It is meant to convey meaning, direct and simply, without adornment of typography.  Its simple three word message is inspiring in its brevity.  By taking a picture of it, I capture it in my memory. The photo is hardly the point.