Noise is endemic in all its forms. Whether it is the cacophony of modern life or the noise inherent in information systems, it is omnipresent and much thought has been put into its propagation, control and meaning. Do we fight the noise or can we control the noise level through how we understand the noise?
So lately I have switched to shaving with a brush, shaving cream and a safety razor. I get an amazing shave from it, but it is a bit time consuming and makes shaving a quick piece of morning minutia to a ritual. Now at multiple times in my life I have shaved my head. This was a bit time consuming, but really not terribly more so than facial shaving. I started to think about how head shaving would go with a safety or even a straight razor, and the ramifications. Read the rest of this entry »
Almost two decades ago, I was at a transitional point in what I listened to. The forms of rock and punk were seeming old and hackneyed to me and I was reaching out to see what else was out there. A love of mid-80s hardcore had already conditioned my ear to listen to things that some people considered un-listenable. A child of the 80s, I already had embraced synths and electronics as legitimate and viable instrumentation. I also understood and loved the imagery and language of the goths. Sonic Youth had just decimated my idea of song structure and a trip to see the Rolling Stones on the Steel Wheels tour had convinced me that classic rock was the bloated corpse stinking up the room. And then I discovered Coil….
So in my quest to become a mushroom cultivator I came across a link to a outfit called Mushroom People. I saw that they were offering a commercial shiitake cultivation workshop in Spring and Fall and decided I would be headed there for the next workshop. Only later did I come to discover it was at the quasi-legendary hippie enclave The Farm.
So it is time to go for a second flush and also get some bureaucratic stuff taken care of. Read the rest of this entry »
In January of 2007, I weighed 243 pounds. I was also looking down the barrel of forty years old. One of these things, I could change. In July of that same year I stepped off the scale 60 pounds lighter. And I did it with drugs.
The middle of January is not the usual time for resolutions. But considering how arbitrary calling January 1 the beginning of the year is, I think I can get away with it.
They say a public declaration of resolutions is a method to help you follow through with them. It also helps to attach concrete goals to the resolutions. I am going with both of these ideas. Read the rest of this entry »
As I relate here, my interest in the Vedic and Hindu tradition has been steadily growing. There is only so much you can get listening to mantras and reading around the house. So I have been planning to attend the local temple in nearby Pike Road. I emailed the President of the Alabama Hindu Society and found out that services are every second and fourth Sunday and on Sunday the tenth was able to visit. Read the rest of this entry »
The Shiitakes were getting very very big, so it was time for the harvest of my first flush.
More video on my foray into raising mushrooms.
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