The symmetry of dreams

I had a dream two nights ago about two people with navigational powers: One could only turn left and the other could only turn right. This is easier than it sounds, as both developed the habit of simply turning 270-degrees in their preferred direction when they needed to go in the forbidden direction.

The dream was about the encounter between the two. The right-turner worked in purchasing for a very large corporation, while the left-turner was in the legal department of the same corporation. They approached each other from opposite sides of an intersection of hallways, the right-turner heading south and the left-turner heading north. They both headed west at the intersection and walked down the hallway side by side. Then the right-turner turned right, into the men's room. The other man continued on, and both were unaware of the significance of their meeting, primarily because there had been none.

Jason has a tooth!

I realized today that he was no longer as fussy as he had been the past few days - so I peeked in his mouth. Sure enough, there is a teeny tiny tooth that has poked its was through, most likely overnight. Bottom row, center, on Jason's left. Looks like a good tooth. He will be eating steak in no time!

The Administrative Procedure Act

The Federal Register sounds really exciting, but its just a big bunch of papers like anything else.

I had a dream two nights ago about two people with psychic powers: One was telepathic and the other could Mesmer/Jedi Mind Trick. The later was in corporate sales for a vendor to a very large corporation which had hired the former as a commercial manager/contracts administrator. The dream is about the struggle between the two. It looks at first that the Mesmer has a huge advantage because he has the ability to take positive action. Soon it becomes clear, however, that when all you can do is assert opinions upon minds without knowing what part of the mind is unaffected, you are vunerable - a blind person with a gun.

The scales start to balance the Mesmer learns to read minds in the ordinary manner of merely being observant. This is harder than it sounds having the psychic ability to change peoples' minds tends to make one a bit; oh shall we say ... pushy and narcisistic? Yes. Let's say that. The dude is pushy and narcisistic but learns to become more astute in reading people's cues and in the process becomes less heavy-handed with the use of his psychic power. The telepath meanwhile uses his power to become extremely persuasive in the ordinary way of telling people exactly what they need to hear. This is similiarly quite difficult because being telepathic means understanding exactly what people think about you and everything else, which can be ugly but mostly is irrevelant.

Ultimately the two join forces or maybe they destroy each other. Its not clear which happens. Its hard to explain but it amounts to a set of circumstances happening which can be interpreted either as unification or mutual annihilation.

Anyhow, that was two nights ago. Last night I dreamed that there were two agencies departments - one could only make rules and the other could only adjudicate and yet this was never a problem and the justices always gave the agency deferrence.

And that's when the clerk blasted me with his cafenated contempt ray

"Welcome to Starbucks can I take your order?"

I'd like a Grande Coffee Light Frappucino

"Okay... will that be all?"

Oh... right I want the special thing.

"What's that, sir?"

Its like... you take a shot of espresso and your pour it over the top of the Frappucino and then you top it with Mocha sauce rather than whip cream. I can't remember that name for it...

"Affogato"

You can't remember it either?

"Very funny, sir. It's called ... affogato."

Oh! I know how it is. You had it just on the tip of your tounge and then you just forgot oh!

(title)

The mighty Finn

Louren, Dakota, Jason, and I visited Finn and parents in the hospital. I suppose its only natural to identify most with Jedi as I no longer remember being an infant and I've never been a mother or an older sibling. Although I don't know precisely, I can imagine something of what he is thinking and feeling as I felt those things too.

Because I have nothing else profound to say, I will also mention that Memorial Herman is a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very large medical facility. I think it may be even larger than Gallery Furniture.

2004 Term Opinions of the Court

Kelo v. New London decided right before Property starts up! Man how lucky am I. That even beats...



We interrrupt this blog entry to announce the birth of:

Finn Alexander Darlingfield

WEIGHT: 7 lb 15 oz.
LENGTH: 19.75"
TIME OF BIRTH: 2:20 PM - June 23 2005

Mother and baby are doing well. Jedi daddy is overjoyed.

Welcome to the world beautiful baby!

Welcome Home, Eric Hewett

In many ways only the Eternal City is worthy.

This post is my response to Eric's A Travel Video. There are no links in this post.

I remember a beautiful summer day in New York's Central Park. Eric and I walked around and spoke of many things. In particular, I remember Eric's deep analysis of Yves Klein's "Immaterial pictorial sensitivity zones." Eric compared Klein to the ancient alchemists creating gold from lead. The connection was that value was created from the moment itself, springing forth from nothingness and destroyed as a necessary property of the evanescent present. The artist's creation of a moment through the consecration of golden treasure; as heroic as it is paradoxical. I thrilled to listen, captive to the brilliance of this classicist explaining to me the condition of post-modernity.

And so it comes to pass once more. I hang on every word in expectation, waiting for the pronoucement that has already come to pass. My mind spins as thoughts about Being, Destiny, Will, Wishes and Wordliness race and then converge upon the moment.

Roll Credits.

Giant popsicle melts, floods New York park

Enough said.

Or if you want more, click here.

Trained monkeys

1. Actually, the fascination with Congo's art stems in large part from the fact that he was untrained, a self-taught artist. There is a freshness and vitality to his work that has never been seen in classically trained chimp painters like Ujumma, Bananas, and Floyd.

2. I, too, was caught off-guard by the comparison to Hokusai. In fact, it was such an obviously moronic comparison that it made me think that purchaser Howard Hong was doing the whole thing as a stunt: Jackass for the NPR set.

I almost crashed the car

This is so for more than the general reason.

On NPR this afternoon, I heard that some so-called art collector just paid over $25,000 for three paintings done by a trained monkey. The commentator made, of course, the obligatory comparison to Pollock and Kandinsky (perpetuating further misconception about the meaning of the convergence of the abstract and expressionist painting genres and its meaning in the context of human history ["Ignorance is Strength" the new motto of the Art & Culture beat reporters at NPR!]) but the looney collector? He has the audacity to say that the painting primate is evocative of early Hokusai. By early, I assume he was referring to that early lost "pooping in the diaper" period of one of the most versatile and prolific painters ever (the Japanese guy, not the chimp).

Surely there was no better use for that money than to celebrate the triumph of the human artistic spirit thusly. Oh wait... I forgot we are talking about a freakin' monkey.

I always thought that this was a Dennis Miller quote

I guess I just misremembered it... BLOCK QUOTE HTML TAG ACTIVATE!

There are a billion people in China. It's not easy to be an individual in a crowd of more than a billion people. Think of it. More than a BILLION people. That means even if you're a one-in-a-million type of guy, there are still a thousand guys exactly like you.

A. Whitney Brown Quotes

Jason vs. Sweet Potatoes

Again, Jason wins! Is there nothing this little boy can't eat?

With the Sweet Potatoes, Jason leaned forward, grabbed the bowl, and began to try to eat it. He also repeatedly grabbed the spoon to suck on, and is now happily removing the last morsels of yum from his fingers and bib. I'd say he is an adventerous eater!

The Venerable Rubber Chicken

An authentic source of true comedy!

Jason vs. Rice Cereal

Jason Wins! (now if I could only figure out the photo posting thing Will set up. Oh well).

Yes, he is only 4 months old, but I believe that the first food should come when the baby begins to follow the food to your mouth with his eyes, and even tries to mooch off of your plate. He ate his rice cereal right down, and from a spoon! (no silly bottle feeding of cereal here).

He is even now trying to lick the remains of the battle off of his bib. Good boy!

L

That rare occassion when I finish my thought

which is this:

I had a dream last night that I had somehow signed up for four law school classes this summer. Admin Law, Property, Health Law (which somehow ran thirteen weeks rather than five) and Chinese Law (which turned out to only be the law of Hong Kong with an extensive reading of Confucius). What disturbed me about the dream was that I realized I was asleep but I didn't realize I was dreaming and I kept thinking "I need to wake up so that I can read the Administrative Procedure Act, HIPAA, and The Commonwealth State.

That part wasn't disturbing. The disturbing part was how reasonable 180 pages of reading seemed to be.

In fact, the key is to read ahead the weekend before.

Trav- Thanks for the card. Dakota got the joke right away. She thought it was awesome.

Dave- SWIRL!

Happy 31st Birthday, Alanis Morissette

I too once botched the meaning of ironic. I now understand that it's like when you have few words to say and then say them with little emotion. It's also when something is operated by pressurized air or other gases. But mostly its an embarassing condition that effects going to the bathroom.

I had something else to say