Food on the table, in the kitchen, turkey in the oven. Jim and Dona assemble a crowd for dinner. Kamikaze wind-up, uh-oh! stuffing stuffed. mmmmmm. good! second to arrive last to leave, hmmm. party!

Ken updates his latest cheap meat dreams and acorns activities -- and active he is, as always, based there in the central Canadian town of Winnipeg (aka the city with the second largest global Icelandic-speaking population after Reykjavik and before Akureyri, Iceland). what do ya know!

at the "Y" I am in the exercise machine room, and see an elderly gentleman with a Coast Guard sweatshirt on and a ship's baseball cap. moving into his sphere, I introduce myself and ask when he served in the Coast Guard (as a family friend was a commander in the Guard). he replies, nodding his head, oh, '41 to '45. we go on to talk for some time. he tells me about his experiences in the Pacific Theater, how there were never pictures of the Marine LST's (landing ship transport) that he skippered when they returned from the beaches of the Pacific campaign. only the photos of the Marines spilling out into the waves when the doors opened, not when they were full of the dead and injured being ferried back to the mother ship. he says he still wakes up at night with that image in his head.

Migrating Régime begins in Berlin. (a photo from Edwina of a group interpretation of the dialogue assignment, hmmm?) I run a seminar/performance/facilitation on Monday, and will be randomly intervening during the week. not as fun as embodied presence, but hey, what can be done. so, from Boulder to Berlin. the next best thing to being there...

The expression of presence is an essential characteristic of the self-organized body-system. Presence is the announcement of be-ing and viability and requires first an inflow and then an outflow of energies from the body system through the conversion of energies from one form to another. This conversion process alters the entire fabric of local existence. Migration of the embodied and energized organism changes everything around it. What do you change around you? What is changed by those around you?



Shared presence is a dialogue of transformation and change. It is the crux of be-ing.

up early. zero Fahrenheit. low clouds. solo in the campground. spilled water freezes immediately. ranger passes through, we chat for a bit. brewing tea while ravens flock back and forth in the pines. a long slow wander through the Douglas fir and fore-dune scrub, up the dunes a bit, and back. silent. low chill breeze.

have lunch at the bajada in the sun. listening.

stop at the visitors center on the way out and happen to meet the woman who would have been my boss had I nailed that position as educational liaison a few years back. very nice instance.

then to the Center, of course. for a circuit or so.



then onto the Gunbarrel north-bound. dinner with Rick and Sally in Golden, then on up to Boulder. Chris and Scharmin and the kids prepping for their Hawaii jaunt. Sage a bit more gray in the muzzle like some of us.

up at 0600, toss the last items in the truck, 0640 departure. head north-by-northeast. one of the five or six route options for traveling between Prescott and Boulder. gas relatively cheap. clear, dry roads. modest traffic. migraine ensues. why? still no answers. face frozen by the icy landscape shape-shifting outside glass cocoon. travel-day migraine.

Navaho voices in my head. a roadblock for a funeral cortege winding in to a ragged and desolate cemetery near Naschitti. a couple Navajo guys hit me up for change at the gas station in Farmington. tens of F350 pickups streaming back in towards Farmington from the gas fields that have raped the region in the last six years since the Bush regime opened up the area to uncontrolled drilling.

migraine persists all day from noon. hard will staves gut explosion until going up the gunbarrel (Route 17) from Alamosa, in the dark, an 18-wheeler in front of me going way too slow, and another behind me going way too fast. suddenly, with head simulating internal combustion with Pallas Athena to be birthed out the forehead or so, I have to vomit. no place to pull off without wrecking, fortunately I have a camping wash-tub in the passenger seat that I had some munchies for the trip in. I dump out the food, swing it between me and the steering wheel and immediately heave my guts into it whilst cruising down the road at 50 mph. three times, gah dam. finally a turn-off. so effing fortunate to have the tub, otherwise, it would have covered the entire interior of the cab, likely. get the car stopped on a side-road, without spilling the tub, open the door and dump it, get some water to rinse acid from mouth. nothing has spilled or splattered. gah. another 20 miles to the Dunes. where it is closing on zero degrees Fahrenheit. zombie-driving past the Center of the Universe and on into the empty campground, and then death-by-sleeping in the back of the truck at an empty camp ground at Great Sand Dunes. -20 C/ 0 F cold outside, but toasty warm in fleece and down. 680 miles. 12 hours. some stops. and all that land, passed by the eyes that are set in a head that wants to implode into a deep sleep.

well, 22 years later... from the kitchen series. for six months, I only photographed in the kitchen of 1417 Mapleton Street in Boulder. E.J., Peter, and Stefan, here, and another 15 or so, unscanned. 4x5 negatives, the 16x20 prints are quite nice...

never having been to the Fort Whipple Veteran's Administration Hospital in Prescott, the occasion of the Veteran's Day Parade on the hospital grounds seemed auspicious. a nice fall day, warm in the sun. plenty of folks around. the first warriors I ran across were the Marine Korean War vet contingent in their brilliant red satin jackets. it only got better from there. I was doing sound recording as well (to be uploaded at some later point) and so, managed a short interview with Frank Murphy, a Pearl Harbor survivor (a Purple Heart as well) who was also a member of Carlson's Raiders in China, served in Korea and Viet Nam.

anonymous online life. Plaxo. another online social networking site that makes people look (and feel!) like this... empowered, eh?

winter storm comes, one of those Pacific storms rolling from the west, from California, tracing little rain shadows across the desert. the first wave comes with thunder and dense, dark clouds, air temperature dropping 10 degrees (C). that passes to the east, blackening sky, followed by a double rainbow that plants itself into the scraped earth of the developments on the next range of hills. Granite Mountain is wreathed in scudding shreds of vapor. I can recall the sky four thousand feet lower in the low desert when these storms roll through. but most of all the complete saturation of the air with that wetted-earth smell. everything eight weeks dry. in late summer early fall sunshines.

got overwhelmed by the flood of responses from the class of 1976 regarding the images I finished uploading. maybe people are more nostalgic as times pass. it's been interesting to hear from folks, though, after all this time. but still nothing solid to comprehend about why memory is so powerful. persistence of recognizing flows. evolutionary, yes. recalling what is dangerous, what is nutritious. but externalized memory, images. as the image-maker, eye hidden behind layers of amorphous silica distortion. seeing. (did I miss high school behind this glass?). am I replaying what was missed?

anyway, a selection of responses, so it goes.

Hi John, I can't believe you put this all together after all this time. Great job on the photos. What a fabulous collection. It was great fun looking at them. It really took me back. Where do you live now? I still live in Maryland with my husband and son. Our daughter is a senior in college majoring in Biology. I would love to hear from you. Thanks again. God Bless. -- Sharon Hill (Warnick)

Hi John, Thanks for the photos. My wife and I always hang out with her friends from high school, here in Los Angeles, and when I hear about how people still hang out with high school friends in Gaithersburg, I always wonder what it would be like to live there and see you all too. My mom and dad still live in the house we lived in when these pictures were taken, but they're talking about moving now. Getting too old to keep up the house. When they go, my physical connection to Gaithersburg will finally be severed. It's pictures like yours that keep it all alive for me. Thanks! -- Chip Bolcik

john, I really enjoyed the pictures. I am not sure who found my email address, but I was grateful. Think of you often as I have been commuting through Clarksburg, which has gone through changes, as I am sure you have heard. Don't know if you remember me or not, but wanted to say thanks for the photos. -- Debbie Hokanson (Lorenz)

Hi John, Just wanted to thank you for all your hard work getting the photos from high school on your web site. I loved you website and glad you were able to continue with Photography. I'm sure that was time consuming, but certainly worth it. I think That 70's Show should look at it so they could be more authentic. Hope you make the next reunion. Take care -- Sharon Niemann (Hartley)

Absolutely fabulous photos! Had a great time reminiscing. Thanks for sharing! -- Karen Harvey (Warnick)

Fantastic job, John! What a fun memory trip for a sunny southwest Florida afternoon. -- Susi Martinsen (Sue Merkling)

Dear John... wwwwwwwwwwwooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww YOU HAVE DONE A GREAT JOB!!! I thank u for the time and specially for the devotion... in this wonderful project... -- Zulma Urrego

Hey John, Nice job!!! Great memories. Thanks! -- John C. Henriksen

stuffing face with post-Halloween mark-down high-fructose poison candy-corns, why-oh-why. Loki? where are you, my son? you should be eating these instead...

at the same time as closing in on a seven-minute 500 yd. freestyle. I'd like to get to a 42- or at least 45-minute 3000 yd. freestyle. 42 would be the preference.

Robert Colescott opening at the Prescott College Art Gallery. eah.

Raptores orbis, postquam cuncta vastantibus defnere terfae, iam et mare scrutantur ; si locuples hostis est, avari, si pauper, ambitiosi, quos non Oriens, non Occidens satiaverit. Soli omnium opes atque inopiam pari adfectu concupiscunt. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus i; imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciuut, pacem appellant. -- Tacitus

The reader from last July's Tuned City event for sound and architecture
is available for order.

Edited by Anne Kockelkorn, Doris Kleilein, Gesine Pagels und Carsten
Stabenow
200 Pages, German/English texts, with Illustrations by Andreas Toepfer

EUR(D) 25,00 / EUR(A) 25,70
ISBN 978-3-937445-36-6
KOOK BOOKS 2008

Sounds belong to the City. They determine spaces and identities. For
years, artists have been using city noises as a material to stage or to
question urban space--new territory, however, for most architects and
planners within the routines of functional planning procedures. "Tuned
City - Between Sound and Space Speculation" searches for a new
evaluation of architectural spaces from the perspective of acoustics.
This volume presents various positions of architects, artists and
theorists to expand the architectural discourse with the dimension of
listening.

YES! WE CAN!

well, being lulled to sleep after midnight (well, I was tired and had a migraine) on Monday night by the sounds of John McCain's last ever campaign rally drifting over the chilly night air from a couple miles away in Courthouse Square. Hank Williams Jr. and the roaring sounds of either people cheering or cars driving by, I couldn't tell in my sleepy haze. nor could I manage to get out of bed to mosey down there and document. another one of those missed opportunities.

this area of Arizona is one of the most right-wing of any places in the US, for whatever reasons (historical and economic), and there is rife anger and fear bordering on paranoia among those elements (it's a Marxist Muslim foreign takeover!). it's a pity, it's an illness. and it is not going away.

and don't forget 62,450,831 to 55,393,194 (with about 98% counted...), this represents a difference of 2.4% of the total population.

A consumate sonic artist and Chicagoan, Studs Turkel moved on to other narratives yesterday. if you have the time, delve into some of the audio archives of his interviews with everyday folks as well as famous people as he illuminated the stories that together weave the history of the US.

a small observation with an important caveat:

I've always felt, in all my books, that there's a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence -- providing they have the facts, providing they have the information. -- Studs Turkel