end of summer, here in Nida, 500 meters from Kaliningrad. more signage. for the nudist beach at the far end of the spit, direct on the border of Kaliningrad. thinking that nakedness and Russian politics go together? rode here with Alvydas to the building that the Academy owns in this beautiful Couronian Spit National Park -- the barrier peninsula enclosing the Couronian Lagoon.

take a wander with Jodi around town and discover the Republic of Art nestled in a beautiful neighborhood of the Old Town. nice to spend a bit of quiet time with her, as we gathered some audio samples and images on the way.

some analysis of the way things went at ram6. as is common with some collective social events, the awareness of the meta-relations and the actual human dynamic was subjugated to the necesities of the material/technological infrastructure and the particularities of the social matrix it was embedded in. allowing for technical/mediative contingencies to proceed from the human needs seems to be extremely difficult because of the depth of our material conditioning. the general vibe of the event overall is positive, progressive, and dynamic. the material situation, the technological infrastructure, was satisfactory. it would have been nice to have a bit more group interaction to set up a vibe that would resonate through the disparate pathways, to be re-measured by another group interaction at the end (the campfire was probably it, but a bunch of us old folks split before that happened 'cause the food arrived too late to the forest happening.

meet Mindaugas at Cafe Intro where he was in the process of taking down a show that Roman had curated. his sister is there along with a friend. nice to meet her, having known mi_ga so long. later at Cafe Intro there is a sonic evening that Derek and Sara organized. it formed something of an ending for ram6 although some people had already left, but a good moment to have those closing dialogues before the remaining folks re-distribute to remote locations.

the day in the forest starts with some confusion around the timing of the bus, but half of the RAM6 group head out, arriving at a small summer cabin, a restored farmhouse where friends of Gediminas and Nomeda had prepared a nice lunch for everybody. a short walk ended at the specially selected location for the streaming party -- at the same time as a heavy downpour starts. the streaming set-up is in a small clearing dominated by five massive oak trees. the rain stops after a bit and some of us head out to discover the location of a legendary spring where people still come to draw water from. no luck, but it is a nice walk anyway. I begin the evening's stream with a short talk, and then some students from the workshop engage in one of the acting exercises. many things are going on. a hundred meters away there is a flat open space on the river where a campfire is built. there is much animated conversation happening there. after dark darkness falls, Kim and I decide to head back to the cabin for some late dinner and to the bus where the less party-inclined are gathering to head back to Vilnius.

birthday comes and goes -- too busy to make any note except in late retrospect. having a great time at ram6! shooting a lot of video, and with that, gathering sounds, but when will there be time to do something with it?

Mark Mclaren of Sijis.com does a nice sonic interview mix of several RAM participants including a short segment with me (at 29.32 into the program) about the workshop I am running. in the mix there are some other nice dialogues with Paulo Raposo, Julian Weaver, and more.

first day of the actual workshop comes and goes. as is always the case, the energy of the situation varies. changes. while the Lithuanian basketball team plays China, Gedimas introduces Geert Lovink for a lecture. the topic, "Critical Internet Culture: Internet Government and Civil Society." a mapping of the geopolitic of the Internet.

ram6 starts. breakfast brings many folks out from closed hotel doors. Nomeda said that we are the only people checked into the hotel for the duration -- it gives the feeling of a large house. soaked on the walk up the hill to the Contemporary Arts Center. find Kim working so we go have lunch until the opening session where the workshop presenters introduce our respective plans to let attendees know what they can choose from. as usual my speaking is a bit cryptic, but there is a line of people afterwards asking good sharp questions and it ends up I have an overflow. a bit wishing to be an attendee only, though, to catch Kim's, or Sara and Derek's workshop, for my own selfish reasons. and with thoughts to tomorrow, making the core decision to follow praxis by theory, rather than the other way around, at the beginning of the workshop tomorrow morning. simple risk, though taking risks in a teaching situation is something that is more than less difficult, relatively, though already the deep risks inherent in many previous workshops prove the worth of each step in the direction a distributed and autonomous learning. facilitator, not teacher. or so.

also was thinking I have to improve the content of the travelog photos. they seem stale. I don't do many portraits because the medium of digital snapshots seems so ... unstable. and unsatisfactory - primarily because of the delay, the ponderous e-lapse from the time the shutter release is depressed and when the electronic shutter activates. impossible. so I stick with architecture and static life.

arrival in Lithuania, right after the national basketball team beat the US team by five points at the Olympics. flying in over lush forests and fallow fields, a bit of wildness. Julija meets me at the airport with a smile, holding a RAM6 sign. drive into town to the Elektra Hotel on the river in the old town. and then walk up to the Contemporary Arts Center where the event is being held. Mindaugas, Derek, and Sara are already there, working away on the wireless connection. Nils comes in, and later Gediminas and Nomeda, so things begin, a look over the facility to map out spaces for the proceedings. good to be a day early, though, to clear head and focus on the workshop proceedings. dinner in a ultra-kitsch restaurant with menu items like "To Hear you Better," "Nude Maids in Sweet Flags," "A Sweet Sin," "Grandpa's Buttons," "Men's Joy," and "Boyish Dreams." gender gap or what -- hard to calculate

racing around, getting ready. dinner with Knut and Björn. Tibetan dumplings. stopping by the Rundetaarn, the site of the unique ramped astronomical tower built in 1642 with a great view of the old city from 35 meters up.

dinner arrives in good form. the two hour stream goes out in good form.

hoboy, knew it would be a long one. up early to say goodbye to Stefan on his way into work, breakfast, Ellen away with Victor to the dentist. final packing. another breakfast with Kevin after the early boiled Irish oatmeal. lunch with Ellen and Kevin at a hippy joint in Montclair. Ellen graciously volunteers to do the 20 minutes drive to the airport instead of me making several transfers over almost two hours, slogging. nothing new at Newark since January. the 1750 flight with SAS to Copenhagen. hardly any sleep, and suddenly it's 0730 and we are landing. Björn meets me at the cafe outside the baggage claim, and we're off to the festival site -- the Overgaden Art Center.

Loki turns 12 today. he's in Iceland, probably having a BIG party as is the norm. like when he's in the US with Amma Lillian making special birthday cakes for him. so it goes. another long flight tomorrow with fast activities at the other end waiting. probably no sleep, for 30 hours. or more. some sonic performances on Thursday and Friday waiting, and getting ready for the where are we eating event on Saturday.

caught up with Kevin yesterday finally, lunch with Stefan at the ANM ABRO trading floor, went with Kevin to his radiation treatment, and had dinner with Randy. back home via the aging and noisy NorthWest commuter train line to see ad-filled Olympic fever.

across the NYC metro area, from one side to another to get Loki to the plane back home. he takes his last pictures on the way, this from the Triboro Bridge between Manhattan and the Bronx. always curious how the infrastructure teeters along in NYC. I can recall Kennedy airport from the early 1970's being under construction. it still is, torn up and pot-holed roads, construction sites that do look years old.

so all the kidding aside, proof that it gets warm in Iceland at least once in awhile. (that's in Centigrade, not Fahrenheit, by the way...)

driving to the furnace of Phoenix (110F), on the way to the airport, a day early, with a small party for Loki with Lexie, Sara, and Trey, along with Aunt Janet and Amma Lillian.

a fortuitous discovery of a large box of Legos at Goodwill when I am down there dropping things off. calculated on the average cost of a new Lego kit -- (over the years, Loki has acquired so many that this extra box will bring his mother grief and the need to buy a larger flat) -- the average cost is USD 0.10 per piece. this box had about 1000 pieces. gold mine. then the decision to build something, as the pieces were obviously from different and incomplete kits, the best route was the challenge of building something with all the pieces. turns out to be a mechanical and not quite the imaginative process I thought, but it looked cool in the end. gone now, in zip-lock bags for the flight home.

the girls come down for a quick visit from NoCal, Livermore, on the verge of attending college away from home. well, Andrea already did last year in Michigan: she'll join Casey, who is leaving home for the first time this year, at a college in SoCal, some of the best surfing around. I'll have to visit sometime. and there's Cynthia who'll leave home in a couple years. out to dinner with Janet and Mom -- Loki and I are outnumbered.

so, finally made it up Granite Mountain in the Wilderness area. up early, but not early enough, so the late morning sun told us on the way down, but we didn't know that at the time. on the trail from Granite Basin by 0715, the first mile a mild level upstream through the riparian wash that leads to the artificial lake across Mint Wash at the trailhead. the next two miles a brutal climb zig-zagging up a south-west-facing slope of scrub oak, prickly pear, manzanita, yucca and such. with the main bulk of the mountain directly to the east, we were early enough to get some shadow cover on the way up, but even still, intense exposure. saw several horned toads and plenty of lizards, but nothing more (i.e., snakes). the last mile, a traverse through partly ponderosa forest was easy. the final ascent to the peak we were aiming for, (500 feet below the main peak which would require an extra 6 miles return trip, bush-whacking), was relatively easy. a snack at the top, and in the building heat, a tiring walk back. saw the largest (greenleaf) manzanita (Arctostaphylos manzanita, Arctostaphylos patula) I've ever seen, with several trunks over 9 inches in diameter. the splendid surface in molt now, but after the peeling bark falls, the trunks are soft-glisten smooth to the touch, and have an unmistakable warm coppery color. treks like this, moderate as they are, remind me that I am soft. no tough survivalist, though I can read much in the landscape, it is clearly a leap away from actually living in the environment. just the solar exposure for that brief time is grueling.