426. Poem Called "Real Thing" Continuation of Blog #423 "The Tragedy of Nature in a Box"

PDF version of the the poem is HERE:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/realthingredwoodtreePOEM1.pdf

Above is a poem called "Real Thing" as to which I wrote back in early March of 2006, when I went with the UC LEADS gang from UC Riverside to the annual UC LEADs Research Symposium event held at UC Santa Cruz that year. The concept is a continuation of "Tragedy of Nature in a Box" which is a satire of the "commodification of Nature" in order to save and keep alive the dxmn thing you love! At the same time, commodification or plastification of Nature adds a lot of "clutter" to our human lives. This poem embodies the notion of how the author was so excited and overwhelmed to finally encounter the "real thing" of the redwood tree rather than the plastificated and pixelated representation of the thing itself.

I started relooking and re-editing this poem post Origins Conference (April 2009) and then became completely fired up about the "Tragedy of Nature Inside a Box" Syndrome as I heard about Communications Campaigns in saving deep coral reefs during the COMPASS conference. I am destined to be locked into something I don't want to do if I want to be financially viable in this society! AAACCCKKK!!!

Well, I think there is a fine line in terms of what I think is "cool" and "not cool" in terms of "nature" versus "representations of nature." When a scientist discovers the mechanisms of sticky feet in geckos and then applies this knowledge to making super sticky glue to enhance fundamental properties of engineering materials for the practical embetterment of all of humanity... I honestly don't have a problem with that. This is the genius process of science and engineering! When Tiffany and Co. makes a very small collection of fine jewerly that celebrates the inspiration of deep coral in our oceans, and then sells these figurines for really jack rip-off prices to elitists members of this society... I still somehow don't have a problem with that, because the process of generating a rare art piece demonstrates inspiration from the natural world. Maybe the mass produced marketing and pixelation of the rare art piece bugs the hxll out of me. When gecko plastic figurines are being deformedly mass produced (along with fake plastic redwood tree figurines) in China and then sold as dinnerware and bathroom decor or sold as useless mass-produced table-top oh-that-kinda-cool-to-look-at-trinket right along side the Hannah Montana collection... THEN... I'm starting to have a problem with that. Fine lines are crossed. I'm a scale person. Small-scale is good, large-scale becomes sin because it's ultimately heavily bioturbating and impactive and non-sustaining.... There's a fine line between inspirational production versus mass-production commodificaiton to make a buck.

(How come the Bible's stopped being written?) Maybe I should write an updated Chapter to the Bible, and add an 11th Commandment. Plastification of Nature and Experience: Scale is Sin. Thou shalt come to know and learn of thou local community. Thou shalt live and consume and produce locally with thou local community. Otherwise, as my father says, "Truth comes with scale."

428. Poem "The Living and Standing Dead" I Had Wanted to Write for a Long Time

"The Standing Dead." Photograph of dead Jeffrey Pine (Ponderosa Pine?) taken when hiking past the ski hut, on the way up to Mount Baldy, San Gabriel Mountains, with my father Richard and my aunt Jean in the summer of 2006. Can eventually be overlaid as "vispo" to go along with the poem below. Now I have to find some zombie-suit-and-tie-people-in-the-city for a "Living Dead" photograph!

The Living and Standing Dead
(incomplete, but a start)

There was a dimcity of the Living Dead,
Lurking in a sphere in a doomful dread,
Stooped, stoic stones faced black and white,
Draped in veneers, lustered suit and tie.

If you're telling me this is the Peak's Peak
Of Civilization's grandeur Ferris Wheel,
If you're telling me, then I will just shriek--
We'll run back-n-hide in the jungle of fields.

Whatever is left of those jungles of fields.


There was a glumforest of the Standing Dead
Made by the sum of the Hands without Heads.
Too many straws sucked the ground to a drought,
Burning to the beetles' once voracious bouts.

If you're telling me this is the Peak's Peak
Of civilization's landscaped Ferris Wheel,
If you're telling me, then I will just shriek--
We're running to the Nothing left of jungled fields.

The Nothing is what's left of those jungled fields.

I wrote this poem in a Motel 6 the morning of returning to the chaos of "southern California." The chaos in my head dramatically increased because I had been relatively isolated and car-camping for about a week around the San Luis Obispo area. The second line of chaos was my encounter and attempted photography of the Santa Barbara Jesusita fire.... and the chaos keeps piling on from there.... It's funny how I can tip in from one line of chaos to another line... from being too alone and isolated... and then venturing into the realm of being surrounded by too many people.

The point of the story is that the writer was suffering from being in a "dimcity of Living Dead" and then she and her friends tried to run out to the "jungle of the fields" and that is where they found the "glumforest of the Standing Dead" and now the poet has no where left to run to... to find any state of "peace."

Another short thought. Yesterday I met up with Shannon Switzer in Costa Mesa. It was really relieving to see her actually. I haven't seen anyone in the Woven Atom group for a while. I admire Shannon so much because she has this impeccable personality (in terms of a kind, intelligent, sensitive, loveable personality that everyone would glue to like super-power magnets), a big vision (in terms of a career in science and art, National Geographic, science and society), and VERY good networking-go-get-'em skills. She has already proven that to me--Shannon has evolved greatly in a few short months of intern stints in Santa Barbara. So, I am relieved to see her because it's like "here are two girls with really big visions in their heads and no one to gripe to and vent and no one to share the journey with... and then finally you have someone who's going the same direction and you just play off each other's moves and we BOTH end up going somewhere. Eh?" Not a bad deal. Thinking Big can be a lonely journey, especially because most people don't think big--or they thought big and instead they settled with a family and a job and dropped out of the road to going to Mars and back. And the Andromeda Galaxy and back. Shannon and I also talked about people around us "encourage us" but don't help in the process. They are encouragement, but not inspiration. There are people who say "you can do it" in terms of shooting for the stars, and then there are people you meet you can actually merge your heads with--like siamese twinning in the brain to some degree--and then you can shoot to the stars with them!

In a certain way I am sad that Shannon's no longer in Santa Barbara, but in a certain way it's good--she's in the San Diego area--I'm there a lot more frequently now... and that Shannon's no longer in the "heap of clutter" of my head that lies in Santa Barbara.

Inspiration is a rare and precious thing. Grasp it and roll with it, once you have claimed it!

388. Poem/Song Called "Inspiration"

we need the fuel
of inspiration
--w'need the spark
of advocation
--t'continue
our perspiration
--t'world's drowning
in information
desp'rate words (terms)
for our salvation--

so the battle of the blood's
now the battle of the brain--

so t'welfare o'mind's warfare
is the final sole string--

for us weave?

290. Cartoon: My Friend is Working Very, Very, Very Hard

Gyorgos at work 1.
Gyorgos at work 2.

My friend has been working very, very hard. He is writing a "STAGE" script, just how I have been, and need to continue. He has isolated himself into "studio mode." It is very funny I understand his mentality rationally but I don't understand it emotionally. So I talk to my emotions : my rationalizations usually say "fxck you" to my emotions, but I guess evolution designed my emotions to be concerned for a few select number of people in this world, and my friend is one of them. So I get all agitated when I have a sequential lack of electronically communicative response. The whole stepping-off-the-planet syndrome. I'm actually saying "fxck you" to my emotions right now.

Otherwise I am proud of him for working hard and following his dreams... and keeping his word. Based on all the things my friend had told me in the past, I had come to realize that these bouts of writing and epiphanies and isolation were inevitable, given that he keeps his word. And so he has, and he is doing right now what I did in the past to my best friend from China, Talei. I isolated myself to the nth degree for a couple of months.

Anyhow, this kind of work ethic just wants me to help him more. It's even more inspiring to some degree... even more taxing to some degree. All I know is that my friend WILL do something amazing for the world. And so I just want to follow him around like a puppy dog, watching what wonderful things he'll be doing next....

220. Alex and Alysson Grey: Eureka! I Found Very Inspiring Artists! Human-Environmental Relations!

Please refer to http://www.alexgrey.com/.

Dear Dr. Grey:
My name is Victoria Minnich and I am one of the first three Ph.D. students in environmental media at the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara. I wanted to clearly state that your artwork has been perhaps the most inspiring to me-- given all artists I have been exposed to in my 26 years of existence-- and has crystallized/visualized the process of my writing a lengthy manuscript entitled Question Reality: An Investigation of Self-Humans-Environment (www.lulu.com/questionreality). My questions are three-fold: (1) For future reference and budgeting of my time in graduate school, do you hold internships on a quarterly (10-week basis), and where specifically? (2) Do you have any galleries or hold any workshops in California (southern California more specifically), and (3) Would you be interested in a film interview in concern of the theme of art and the environment (also if I could feature your artwork in a planned music video entitled "Perceptual Relativity")?
Thank you so much for your time and attention,With much regards, Victoria Minnich, stokastika1@yahoo.com

Dr. Grey's wife (Alysson, I believe) is also a fractal artist, and his daughter Zena is very well networked in Hollywood. A red carpet figure.

207. Poem / Song Mr. Inspiration, Supposed to be Partly Funny

Mr. Inspiration

Relieved me

From Mental Constipation

Believe me

He goes about Creatin'

Deceive me

Some Novel Passing Ways

So lead me

Monsieur Inspiration

Of Near-Divine

Resurrection

Of my Dormant Mind

of Demons

To Northern Lights

of Res'lution....