The Magic of the Cities.

Zen promotes the rediscovery of the obvious, which is so often lost in its familiarity and simplicity. It sees the miraculous in the common and magic in our everyday surroundings. When we are not rushed, and our minds are unclouded by conceptualizations, a veil will sometimes drop, introducing the viewer to a world unseen since childhood. ~ John Greer

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Carlos Fuentes



1928 - 2012
Mexico lost a leading novelist Tuesday when Carlos Fuentes died at 83. Carlos Fuentes was many things: acclaimed author, brilliant mind, ambassador to France, literary award winner, and a recipient of France’s Legion of Honor medal and Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award.

Here's some of AP's obituary:
He wrote his first novel, "Where the Air Is Clear," at age 29, laying the foundation for a boom in Spanish contemporary literature during the 1960s and 1970s. He published an essay on the change of power in France in the newspaper Reforma the day he died.
His generation of writers, including Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, drew global readership and attention to Latin American culture during a period when strongmen ruled much of the region.
"The Death of Artemio Cruz," a novel about a post-revolutionary Mexico that failed to keep its promise of narrowing social gaps, brought Fuentes international notoriety.
The elegant, mustachioed author's other contemporary classics included "Aura," "Terra Nostra," and "The Good Conscience." Many American readers know him for "The Old Gringo," a novel about San Francisco journalist Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared at the height of the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution. That book was later made into a film starring Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda.
Fuentes was often mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel prize but never won one. A busy man, Fuentes wrote plays and short stories and co-founded a literary magazine. He was also a columnist, political analyst, essayist and critic.

Quotes:

“I need, therefore I imagine.” 

“I live through risk. Without risk there is no art. You should always be on the edge of a cliff about to fall down and break your neck.” 

“Religion is dogmatic. Politic is ideological. Reason must be logical, but literature has a privilege of being equivocal,”

“Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror.”

“There must be something beyond slaughter and barbarism to support the existence of mankind and we must all help search for it.” 

“What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.”

“Chaos: it has no plural.” 

“One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.” 

― Carlos Fuentes



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Sunday, May 13, 2012

Biking with Dinosaurs





(Dinosaurs made with PET bottle recycling)
-iPhone shots+Snapseed-
“Music should be thought of as the desire for an ecstatic relationship to life."
"Music has to have a deep joy inside it."
 ~ Keith Jarrett  (Musician and former disciple of the mystic philosopher G. I. Gurdjieff)

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Friday, May 11, 2012

Rainy Afternoon




THE CURRENT CHALLENGE
Fri May 11, 2012
This week's challenge:
'Detailed'.

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Thursday, May 10, 2012

The Flying Kiosk and The Empty Iron Bench



I Am Your Mind, Part 2 Lyrics
Roy Ayers

If you believe in yourself
You’ll know the real you
It’s coming from within
Sincerely, sincerely
You subject yourself to being vulnerable
Not knowing why you fall in love
And so you become
What you are made to become
It’s not at all fair that I feel as I do
Tell me something to make me feel better
My sister, I am your mind. Within you there’s a never-ending magnitude of infinite strength, wisdom and will. You travel my roads through life never knowing your own true reality because my thoughts remain like distant quasars. You abuse me by never letting me say and do as I feel. Our thoughts split from love affairs to choice of friends. We argue like two enemies yet we are good friends.
Now, there are moments when we harmonize with each other, and become one with nature and reality. But these times are few. When after you have replenished yourself, the fear of the truth sets in. We split, and you start to run again. Running, running, running. Running through women, men, jobs, people and life looking for the answer when I had it all along. But I smile… because I am your mind.
I was your mind yesterday; I am your mind today; and I’ll be your mind tomorrow. And as our end draws near we will become closer. But you and I, you and I, we will never be one, for I will part from you and you will part from me; you finding another mind and I another soul. And we’ll travel on and on.
By the way, I need more than sex to nourish my equilibrium. But I do need sex. I also need sun, trees, stars, creativity and love. But you saturate my soul with too much of one and not enough of the other. Therefore I cry. But why do we cry? Because tears cleanse the windows of our minds. I am your mind.

Tell me something to make me feel better

All your thoughts inside your mind wanting to be free
Well, now you’ve got the chance to let your mind grow… and be free. Because the music is just trying to say things to free your mind. And if you let your mind be free, then you can understand mine. There’s no need to be afraid of me. I want to be your friend. I’m just trying to give you music from deep, deep, deep within.
And on and on, and on and on
Tell me something to make me feel better
All of your dreams can become reality. My dial reaches full, but you’ve only been turning me halfway. Turn me up, and alpha and theta waves will spew from your pores. Knowledge, peace, happiness and prosperity will be placed at your feet. Let’s, let’s create. Solve. Love. Accomplish. And unify. As-Salaam-Alaikum.


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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Cloud Talk


Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
Carl Sagan

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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Door





Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.
Carl Sagan

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