Friday, February 27, 2015 at 12:16PM Surprisingly lovely video from Tom Sachs about plywood. Plywood is such a basic and common feature of our life, yet there is a general lack of appreciation for this noble forest product. Truth be known, I've always kind of liked working with plywood. Something for Friday. [NOTE: I knew the video was going to be good when they referred to the plywood as "she"].
Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 1:40PM 
George Rodrigue painting, Blue Dog at the Revel (thx, Jim and Jacque), hanging in the living room (see Reading). I sit in a chair across the room in front of this painting and read. And think. A lot.
This from George Rodrigue:
"People say the dog keeps talking to them with the eyes, always saying something different. People who have seen a Blue Dog painting always remember it. They are really about life, about mankind searching for answers. The dog never changes position. He just stares at you. And you’re looking at him, looking for some answers, ‘Why are we here?,’ and he’s just looking back at you, wondering the same. The dog doesn’t know."
And this, from a teisho by Susan Murphy Roshi on the koan Mu (see Mu):
"So your job is not to resolve some questions about dogs. Dogs, like cats, are a settled matter. They don't have Buddha Nature, they are Buddha Nature–overflowing with it–and luckily we don't assume that we know what that is. It is experienced, but remains always alive and beyond attempted capture by the known."
As the Blue Dog has been trying to tell us.
[NOTE: Reflections in the painting are from the side window, and I can make out the little jade plant sitting on the window sill].
Blue Dog, George Rodrigue, Mu in Art, Dharma, Other | Share Article | Email Article | Print Article Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 9:41AM 
Four years ago I was paused at the Washington Monument at Eakins Oval at the end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkaway in Philadelphia getting ready to go into the Philadelphia Museum of Art (see Bodhisattvas). The momument is crowned by a statue of a uniformed George Washington on his horse; I was more captivated by the decidedly stern, yet noble American indian depicted on the lower tier. [NOTE: Statue by the German sculptor, Rudolf Siemering].
Monday, February 23, 2015 at 2:32PM 
Another look (see Sycamore) at the sycamore tree behind the parking lot near my office at NYBG. Still majestic, still beautiful. Just different covered with snow.
"One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the trees crusted with snow"
Wallace Stevens
1954
The Snowman, The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
Friday, February 20, 2015 at 10:14AM 
White limestone, white tree (probably a Ficus sp.), cloudless blue sky, and blazing sun. Thinking of this trip to Calakmul in Campeche years ago, and how hot and dry it was, and doing all that I can to ignore the fact that it is 3° F with blustery winds in New York this morning with a wind chill of -28° F.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 9:49AM
Monday, February 16, 2015 at 9:47AM 
Can't remember what this says. But it was in The Myanmar Times in late February 2005 and that's me standing in front of a large pile of rattan cane in Kachin State with a fieldbook and a Hukaung Valley Rattan Survey baseball cap (see Mandalay Express; wait until the end of the video clip). [NOTE: Anybody read Burmese? I'd love to know what this says].
Friday, February 13, 2015 at 11:33AM 
David Carr, media columnist at The New York Times, died yesterday in Manhattan. Interesting story here. Former drug addict, cancer survivor, alternative journalist joins the Times in 2002 as a business reporter and soon becomes the "gold standard" for insightful reporting on modern media and the digital era. He was a fantastic writer and a keen observer of things.
Nice pieces (here and here) on Carr in today's Times. I will really miss his Media Equation column. And his croaky voice and acerbic wit. Sigh. [NOTE: Image credit to Magnolia Pictures].
Thursday, February 12, 2015 at 2:31PM 
There is usually a back story to the images that I post. Like the one above. So, yes, I was pausing to catch my breath near 7 mile camp on the Ledo Road when I heard the rumble of a truck coming, and then I saw it was a rattan truck loaded with people, and packages, and lots of cane, so I got out my camera and took a picture.
And then I flipped the camera and took a landscape image (above) as the truck got closer. And I remember thinking, "What a great truck". And so I waited a bit, until it was right on top of me and I could see the faces of the driver and the passengers–and then took this. Which is one of my all-time favorite "people and plants–in a hurry" shots.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 9:10AM 
The joining of the N'mai (or May Kha) and Mali Rivers in northern Kachin State (shown above) forms the Ayeyarwady (or Irrawaddy) River, the largest, most revered, and commercially most important waterway in Myanmar (see Confluence of the Ayeyarwady). Construction on the Myitsone Dam, a joint venture between the China Power Investment Corporation and Myanmar's Ministry of Electric Power, began at the confluence of these two rivers in 2007. In a rare concession to public opinion, President Thein Sein announced that the project was to be suspended during his administration. [NOTE: Go here to read more about this controversial hydo-electric project].
