the roses they won't hurt you

the recent proliferation of partially smushed walnuts, at certain locations along my bicycle commute, has become something of a hazard, greater in fact than the fully smushed osage oranges on state street, next to the u-m golf course and near the ann arbor railroad. the thing is, the walnut husks get smushed but the nut itself remains intact, hiding knob-like underneath the smushed husk and presenting the sort of hazard that could cause one to lose control of one's bicycle, if one's mind was on something other than the exigencies of bicycle maneuvers. a smushed osage orange, on the other hand, while kind of gross is still something you could pretty much ride right through, as long as you held your line and didn't try to turn in the middle of it, in which case the transverse forces may be too much for the psuedoplastic smushed osage orange and it would just give way, and the bicycle would slide, and you'd be on your ass, in traffic no less.

me, i wouldn't place much faith in the rheological properties of smushed fruit. better i should look where i'm going.

so i was looking where i was going this morning and pulled in behind a honda pilot that was turning right from miller onto first street, getting right behind the vehicle and in line with its rearview mirror, on the off chance that the driver would take a glance at the mirror and hence see me (it does happen sometimes), and just as the car makes its turn i see it almost hit another bicyclist who has come essentially from nowhere, and shakes his head in what i imagine to be disbelief or exasperation or something like that, and i think well there you are tearing up on the right and what exactly were you expecting to have happen, and oh by the way did you happen to see me and what i was doing, and figure out that there was no way in hell that honda pilot was going to give me the right hook in that situation? with me riding behind it instead of trying to slip through on th right? and then he rides up on the sidewalk, and i think oh well whatever. and he tears along the sidewalk but waits at the light at main street. on green he starts tearing along the sidewalk again, scoots across fourth avenue at the next intersection, then stops again at the light at fifth. and i was tempted to invite him into the street, if he is going to be that swift and agressive, but i thought the better of it and turned on red to head south on fifth and that was pretty much it.

funnier still was that, while heading east on catherine, parallel with mister wift and furious, i also saw another cyclist coming the other way, blowing the stop sign at fourth and going straight through from the left turn lane, and he was riding a "fixie" just like me! and i thought hey fixed gear brother, right on! no, actually that's not what i thought at all. i though what a bonehead. which was judgemental, i know, but hey i'm riding my bike here.

the guy was hitting "fixed gear culture" on all cylinders: jankity conversion, messenger bag, no helmet, no rules. sometimes i wish i had a nickel for every cornball cyclist i see in my town. i wouldn't be rich, but i would have a tidy pile of nickels.

sheets of sound

tomorrow (september 23) is john coltrane's birthday. if he were still alive, he would turn 80.

i can barely describe what his body of recorded work means to me. there is much non-musical hero-worship baggage that weighs down his otherwise fleet legacy, but it is easy for me to ignore all that; what remains still burns mightily, and permeates my senses more fully than any frankincense-stoked ceremonial urn. countless hours of repeated listening to his extemporizations, from mating call to wise one and beyond, followed by countless hours of practicing (well, compared to mr. coltrane, probably easily counted), haven't taken away any of the awe and wonder. as much as i love wardell gray, lester young, dexter gordon, joe henderson, wayne shorter, john gilmore, clifford jordan, sam rivers, hank mobley (to name only tenors), john coltrane remains an indescribably powerful influence, and inspiration. a few favorite albums:














i have about forty others. and then there are those miles davis records...





i know every note of those records.

just the other day i discovered this newly-released session, of which i was totally unaware. i felt like a kid again, buying a record without hearing because i knew how incredible it would be. and it is incredible; trane was really getting into some shit at that point, but clearly (in retrospect, that is) needing to find another kind of setting, something more open-ended, perhaps.



and what is even more profound to contemplate, given my more recent musings as to the influence of the recording process on the art of the improvisor, is how much of trane's work was unrecorded. to be sure, his creative journey was captured in better than average detail, and it is possible to hear many similarities in different solos (particularly with certain chord changes in certain keys). he had pet phrases the way we all do. but imagine: what would be the impact of only hearing him play live, never being able to go back and take apart in minute detail those intricate series of substitutions and harmonic embellishments, only trusting his direction and letting yourself be carried wherever it was he was going that night, in that club, for those hours.

that would have totally fucking incredible.

~\.°=°./~\.°=°./~\.°=°./~\.°=°./~\.°=°./~\.°=°./~

i took the photograph of the highway marker on us 74, in hamlet north carolina a number of years ago. i used to pass through there on my way from the family beach vacation to the mountains from the beach for some solo backpacking. over the years an expressway has been built diverting traffic around the town, so this spot will be overlooked by even more persons as the years go on.

but i was struck by the elegant understatement of the sign's text: "influential stylist". how true. "work spanned bebop to avant garde." also so completely true.
the sign is a bright spot along us 74, which is officially known as the "andrew jackson memorial highway"; persons indigenous to the area have been trying to get that changed for years, for reasons that should be obvious to any student of american history. to make matters worse, some distance west of hamlet there is a stretch dedicated to jesse helms. whenever i would see that sign i was tempted to put the car right into the nearest ditch, rather than drive on that asshole's road.

i'm looking at ghosts and empties

okay so better. after multiple marathon writing sessions and teleconferences, that st. louis modeling report is in very good shape, if not exactly out the door yet. and i had little cause to worry about the other projects. the trip to hanover was good, always a good experience. the older son learned a valuable lesson about wine consumption during the saturday afternoon celebration, which colored his perception of the evening's festivities as well. a photoset will end up on flickr at some point (not including the drunken lad).

the LTCP-EZ workshop stuff basically got pulled out from under me. the transfer was not handled elegantly (i found out sort of by accident, at a time when i was already feeling as though my stock was perilously low), but given the urgency of the situation it is understandable, at least, and i don't really mind getting out of it. west virginia is kind of pretty, though.

the ECOMSED model was waiting for me, as it turned out. as was the FEQ model of another river i can't talk about; this will lead to a detailed 3D hydrodyamic and particle transport model of a turning basin in this same river, which i can't talk about either, and i hope to get involved in that as well. even though i can't talk about it.

but i can talk about the weather, and that's cool because i like to talk about the weather. it was cold this morning, barely 42 °F at the house, and the weather service claiming a temperature of 33 °F at the airport, down in the flats, and of course i ride right past the airport although by that time i am cheerfully warmed up and toasty even, in short pants when it's 33 °F out, and i can see that it's colder along state street than back at the house, because i can see the frost sometimes, even though i can't feel the difference. anyway it makes me excited for fall backpacking.
sunday it was 80 °F. it is just that time of year.

*<|°-°|>*<|°-°|>*<|°-°|>*<|°-°|>*<|°-°|>*<|°-°|>*<|°-°|>*

so i have been taking pictures of the reflecting pool for almost a year. the next step is to "go pro" (as they say) with flickr and get that slideshow up there. the slideshow is the key, like the free project but even more so, because the individual pictures say less than the collection as a whole does. so anyway, that's coming at some point.