Cranes

Some time ago I put away the origami cranes in a carton.  Then recently I took them back out.  My plan is to have them glued to a stiff board and placed in a custom-made plexiglass frame for permanent display, just like a painting, and I wanted to get an idea of the dimensions of such a frame.

Good thing I did too, because it turned out I had laughably underestimated the size of the frame that would be required if I were to house all 1000 cranes together in a single frame, as I had optimistically planned.

 
That simply would not be practical unless one had the indoor display capacity of a gallery, as I found out once I began laying them out in a rectangular format.

That's just 200 -- one-fifth of the total, and it already takes up an area measuring approximately 43 inches by 32 inches.  To my mind that probably approaches the practical limit of manageability for ordinary plexiglass frames.  I could be wrong, but I would want to err (well)on the side of caution.

Maybe 250 per would be all right, or even 333?  But then I would have to do some fast juggling in order to divide them into 3 identically and pleasingly proportioned rectangles somehow, without any being left over.  Could the middle one have some special feature in the center that would allow for unequal distribution among the three, à la 'Avidya' below?  Maybe :).  This is something I will have to work on.

'Neighborhood Butterfly'

Strictly speaking, this post should be titled 'Random Flitting Object #2' -- but I think this may be the same butterfly I encountered several weeks ago in the same parking lot ('Random Flitting Object', April 9), which would make it a Neighborhood Butterfly, like a Neighborhood Stray Cat or Neighborhood Thrift Shop.  I find the phrase amusing.

Not that I'm proud of it or anything, but I'm willing to bet no one has ever assigned the 'Neighborhood X' role to a butterfly or, indeed, any insect before (as in, "Bugger that neighborhood cicada!  It's so LOUD!").

And what if one or more of the earthworms I rescued from the sidewalk and returned to the soil were 'repeaters'?  That would certainly qualify them as 'Neighborhood Worms' (in addition to being dangerously immune to learning from a  mistake), which I find even more amusing.

Blue Sun #5

Related post:  Another Blue Sun

I Like A Sociopath

Someone using the name M.E. Thomas -- which probably is a pseudonym -- has authored a book in which she discusses her sociopathic personality.  That is to say, she has actually been formally diagnosed as a sociopath.  You know -- she has no empathy for others' feelings (she actually refers to us normals as 'empaths' rather in the way the magical folk in the Harry Potter books refer to us as 'muggles'), she can be ruthless and manipulative, she can contemplate -- or perform -- pretty dark acts without qualms, that sort of thing.  Like a psychopath.  BTW, I'm not too sure what the technical distinction is between sociopathy and psychopathy, but in the book she accepts that most lay people tend to use the two terms more or less interchangeably, so I guess the pitiless, unfeeling, solipsistic psycho stereotype is somewhat useful as a pointer.  To an extent.  So long as we remember that there is a whole spectrum of sociopathic personalities.

It so happens that I started to read M.E.'s book just the other day, and in it she mentions that she also operates a blog, in which she discusses sociopathy-related issues.  I therefore sent her an e-mail c/o the blog, stating what I thought of the book so far, and to my surprise she actually e-mailed me back:

ME:  I just started reading your book.  It's got me envious of sociopaths.  Your description of yourself and others of your ruthless ilk (that I've read so far) has me thinking you may actually be the healthiest and happiest -- or at least the least unhappy -- people around.  As one who is subject to a host of conventional guilts and cares, I imagine a world where sociopathy is the norm and everyone is blithely, uncaringly, and honestly self-seeking, and I can only sigh at the vision. Perhaps the Golden Rule, that most pragmatic interpretation of self-interest, would actually be the guiding moral principle in that world.

M.E.:  Thanks for this!  Can I publish what you wrote on my blog?

ME:  Be my guest >..<  XD  I only hope the rest of the book doesn't make me eat my words ;o)

ME:  Can I publish your response on MY blog?

M.E.:  Yes, of course.

It may be that she is not used to hearing her condition described in such glowingly positive terms.  But why not -- as long as the self is satisfied with itself, the minimal condition of happiness is met, no?  And sociopaths, as I understand them, are not significantly bothered by self-criticism, except perhaps in a practical, evaluative manner that has nothing to do with moral compunction.  In the Star Trek universe, *the devious, asura-like Cardassians and the nakedly greedy Ferengi, unapologetic self-seekers both, always seemed to me to be the most smugly self-satisfied characters.  Add a little bit of the cold, unbothered reason of the Vulcans to the mix, and that is how I see sociopaths.  The better-adjusted, high-functioning ones among them, anyway.

*Possibly relevant post:  The One And Only Time

Another Firebird

Related post: Firebird

Find The Birdie

A hummingbird photo I came across in an old folder.  This one probably was an easier shot than the instant-of-taking-off ones.

Today's Hummingbird Photo

2 'Bows From Today

A Low Cloud

If only it had been over the roof, I really think I could have gone up there and touched it, put my hand inside it.  Probably it would have felt cold and wet and swirly -- like putting your hand inside the freezer compartment of the refrigerator or getting caught in the spray of mist at the supermarket vegetable stand.

Where A Butterfly Has Passed

A flower saw her and fell in love

And tried to follow her

The unknowing butterfly

*I Feel Within A Rain Of Tears

These last few days we got us some honest-to-goodness rain.  Not a lot, but enough to remind Los Angelenos that there are other kinds of weather besides healthy and boring.

*Sento in seno ch'in pioggia di lagrime = aria from Tieteberga/Il Giustino, an 'opera' by Vivaldi

A Little Green

When I opened my eyes this morning it was past 10:00 AM.  I didn't feel up to getting out of bed, so I stayed in it a while longer and finally got up at 10:33, feeling woozy and fuzzy.

I didn't understand why at first, but then it came to me.  Yesterday I gave blood in the morning.  Then in the evening I drank wine.  It was pretty much the normal amount I drink when I have wine, but I suppose when you have less than the normal amount of blood, it's proportionately more alcohol than usual.

Post-Rain Figure With A Long Neck (A Portrait Of The Author)

Yesterday's Hummingbird Pic

Somebody Up there...

really, REALLY dislikes that tree.

Moon Over Tree, Revisited

The magic is still there, two and 3/4 years later.

Related post:  Moon Over Tree

Urban Giraffes

A pair of giraffes.  They live directly across the street from me, in an empty lot that's been cleared for development.

But I can't shake the sneaking suspicion that THEY are actually an IT -- one giraffe, not two.  I think they are a conjoined pair of twins, two head-necks sharing one body like a partial Scylla.  I don't think it's possible for two whole giraffes to stand abreast that close together.

A Disturbing Dream

My left hand, in waking life.

And this is how it was in a dream, two days ago.  I remember nothing else about the dream.

It is said that what really matters is not so much the dream as the interpretation.  So I'm going to assume it's an auspicious omen.

4/1000

I once had this idea that I should do individual 'portraits' of all 1000 sculpted faces of 'Avidya'.  That project never got very far, but here are some of the best ones.

A Brilliant Mushroom

Bright as a miniature model of the Sun in the grass.  If I ate this, would it make me see brilliant colors and lights?

Intense Thoughts

I don't know if these 'Daimones' are rational beings in the same sense as humans, but I am certain they are conscious and perceptive -- that they feel feelings and think thoughts.  Maybe not the same kinds of feelings and thoughts as those we experience, but minds undoubtedly come in many varieties.  Maybe when they see me and other humans go by they wonder if we have feelings and thoughts like theirs.

Smilodon Man

A lithograph from the last century.  When I spent a year working as a tech assistant in the printmaking shop at USC art department before starting graduate school at UCLA.

Horror

I don't remember the details because it was a long time ago and probably also because it was such a traumatic experience, but I think I made this object

in memory of the night when, during a group therapy session -- at the time I was seeing a clinical psychologist twice a week, once for individual therapy and once for group session -- I suddenly broke into sobs, cried uncontrollably for maybe ten minutes straight and punched a hole in the wall of the therapist's office (later I had to shell out $50 to have it patched -- who knew I had such strength?).

After that torrent of tears and snot I managed to calm down at last and drove myself home.  I went up the steps to my door and found my cat Blood crouched beside it.  Sometimes Blood would push out the screen window in the back and slip out during the day;  I had intended to have it fixed  but never gotten around to it -- but at least he hadn't gone and got himself lost, but was waiting for me by the door like a good little housecat.  I was so glad to see him and I bent down to pat his head, then felt something wet and sticky.  It turned out to be blood.  Blood on Blood.  I crouched down beside him and looked close, and saw big gashes on his side, one going around his body to his chest.  I freaked -- I started crying all over again and carried him inside -- it must have hurt him terribly to be picked up -- and when I turned on the light I realized I could see right inside his chest cavity;  he'd been sliced open.

Sobbing and in full panic mode, I looked up animal hospitals in the phone book and found one that was open for emergency care (this must have been 10 or 11 PM), ironically close to my therapist's office back in Westwood.  I wrapped Blood in a towel, carried him into the car and drove right back to the clinic in Westwood, where I deposited him on the reception counter and continued to sob.

After the staff had taken Blood inside, I collapsed on the couch and tried to collect myself.  The receptionist gave me a box of tissues and I sat there for what seemed an interminable interlude while they worked to save my pet, blowing my nose every couple of minutes until there was a sizable mound of wadded-up tissue on the coffee table in front of me.

Once the surgery was over, I had to leave Blood there until he had recovered enough to go home.  And after I did bring him home, with drainage tubes sticking out of him, I laid him down on a pile of towels, where he stayed without moving for three days straight.  I was concerned that he might have been too cold on that floor (I was living in a storefront studio at the time), but on the other hand, maybe the cold felt good against the throbbing stitches.  And once he could get up and move around a little, back he went to the vet's to have the Elizabethan collar installed.  It was probably humiliating for him, but he took it well.

EDIT 1:  It turned out that Blood had climbed under the hood of a neighbor's car.  Later, when the neighbor came and unknowingly started the engine, the fan blade...

EDIT 2:  When my friend Evelyn heard about this incident, she quipped that Blood had become Bloodbath.  O.K., that was funny.

EDIT 3:  I was living next door to a Calypso musician at the time.  A few days after the incident, one of the man's bandmates came up and said "When ah heard Blood got hurt, ah thought a bruthuh got shot!"  That was even funnier (the neighborhood was in *Blood territory).

*The Bloods were a notorious street gang in south central Los Angeles.

Cloud Shadow

THE BEAUTY AND THE SADNESS OF EPHEMERALITY



Double Double Take

Crow

Crow x 2

Fooled ya! . .