180 Degrees South : Conquerers of the Useless

"My whole life I've been drawn to open country. I always come home a little different."

Recommended by one of my favorite friends, Eric Beard, this film has become one for the top shelf. 

"If you compromise the process {of adventure}, you're and asshole before you get there and your an asshole when you get back."

and

"The word adventure has been overused. Adventure is when everything goes wrong. That's when adventure starts." We paused the film at the point and my wife added in, "When fear overcomes the excitement and you start to doubt. That's adventure."

Love that. 

"It's easy for us to blindly consume when we don't see the effect it has on other places. The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. It's easy to make it complex."

So good. 

The soundtrack ain't bad either. 

Neither is Jeff Johnson's photography.

Kinda makes me want to pack up and head out on some great adventure.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  The Mountains have a Way  :  Get Out More

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This Is the Hand: A Response to Recent News

By Carolita Johnson October 26, 2017

This simple cartoon truly struck me, on several levels. The first is perhaps the most obvious, and that is, what the hell is wrong with these men and other men and all men who do this kind of shit to women, kids, people!?!?!

The second thought is a bit more complicated.

Why? 

Because, as Sherman Alexie says when talking about a man in his tribe who was known to have raped and murdered and why he was never accused was because "he mimics proper human behavior . . . Because he speaks a little bit of the tribal language. Because he genuflect and prays in front of large crowds. Because he wears beads and feathers every day of the year. Because he plays the role of traditional Indian better than most. Because he proclaims himself holy and is superficially believed" (pg 178).

We want to believe the best in people, to hope in people, even when we know better, because we want to believe and hope in ourselves. That our faults and sins and terrible mistakes won't define or restrict us. We want to believe the best in others because we want others to believe the best about ourselves. So we gloss and paint and cover up our sins and allow the monster of superficiality to live and breath and grow and finally devour. 

One of my new favorite podcasts, The Liturgists, says this about themselves, "We believe that beauty is the heart and perhaps primary truth of the Gospel. If it's not beautiful, it's not worth speaking of or working on." And although a large part of me wants to embrace this way of life and living, another bigger part of me rejects it. Because it seems a bit superficial.

In Arthur Miller's, The Crucible, John Proctor states, "We are only what we always were, but naked now." This seems accurate for today as well.

In the coming weeks and months, we should expect many more accusations of a similar kind towards politicians, athletes, comedians, church leaders, community leaders, CEO's, parents, extended family, neighbors and from every nook and cranny of this dark and complicated world because although life and humanity are beautiful and absolutely worth celebrating, it is also hard and cruel and absolutely broken.

Cutting off the hand of the man that reached and touched won't cloth and cover the sins and devastation of the world. Neither will silence. 

As Sherman Alexie says, "victims have learned, on the reservation and everywhere else, that is is more painful and dangerous to testify than it is to silently grieve." 

Because, "on the reservation," as it is everywhere else, "testifiers are shunned and exiled."

"On the reservation," as it is everywhere else, "silence become the tribal ceremony that everybody performs" (pg 178)."

And so the hand reaches. Because it knows it can. Because it knows we'll be silent. 

But not anymore.

And may that be the new proper human behavior.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  On Living  :   On Tolerance 

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I Will Go Back Tonight : A Documentary by Kara Frame

When was the last time I was in Vietnam? 

It was last night. It was this morning. It was five minutes ago.

And I will probably go back tonight.

A Veteran's Story, as told by a veteran's daughter, Kara Frame:

I first knew my dad, Tom Frame, was different when I was young, but I didn't know exactly how. Every year when he marched in our Memorial Day Parade in Doylestown, Pa., I stood on the side of the road waving my tiny American flag with so much pride.

He was my dad, my veteran.

As a teenager, I began to learn about his time in Vietnam during the late 1960s. I heard about fallen men, fierce battles and something called post-traumatic stress disorder. I still didn't fully grasp at that time what my father was living with, and it wasn't until my late 20s that I was ready to dive into a project about my dad's PTSD.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 30 percent of all Vietnam veterans have suffered from PTSD, and the effects can last many years.

When I began this project in 2014, I knew it would give me insight into my dad and his experiences in his early 20s, when he was fighting in Vietnam. I never anticipated the depth of understanding it would offer me into my mother and her life — standing by a veteran with deep-rooted trauma — and the role PTSD has played in their marriage.

The documentary project follows the lives of my father and several other Vietnam veterans from his Army unit, the 1st Battalion, 5th (Mechanized) Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, who served together.

The veterans recount a terrible ambush at a rubber plantation in Ben Cui on Aug. 21, 1968. And their wives open up on how PTSD has affected their marriages in the decades since (via).

You know what I think PTSB is, at root? I think it's a spiritual wound, and I don't think it can be treated with medications necessarily. I think it requires some spiritual healing with people. Some meaning making again. Some reconnecting with your values and your morals and your ethics. 

Now that you've sort of seen the other side of life.

I love that, "spiritual healing with people." Not alone, not in prayer, and not alone in prayer, but with people.

And I love that. 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  WWII Vets, "Former enemies now friends"  :  Oldest Living Vet

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Thank you for your service

I'm not a hero. We're brothers; we look after each other.

But I disagree. You are. And thank you for your service:

Bryan Beard

Jarod Cappon

Brian Wright

and the many, many others.

Thank you.

The First Lady of ISIS

Tania Georgelas, the ex-wife of the highest-ranking American member of ISIS, reckons with her extremist past and attempts to build a new life (via).

This is her story.

And in many ways, it's ours too.

The dual transformation of John and Tania is the most American part of this story. What is America, if not a promise of infinite possibility, and ability to transcend one’s origins? John grew up wealthy, Christian, and patriotic; now he is poor, Muslim, and full of hate for his native land. Tania’s metamorphosis has taken the precise opposite form, as if the universe demanded symmetry in their stories, and decreed that she resume the prosperous suburban life that he left behind. They met in the middle, trading fates. His ending is probably already written. Her life, if she’s lucky, is just getting started (via).

What stuck me most about this story is the assurances of truth. John and Tania, on either sides of their transitions, are so very confident in what they know and how they know it, allow it to guide and direct their lives, even to the point of radicalism. 

Which isn't all that different from so many of us. We may not be joining ISIS, but we are just as confident in our truths and way of life - we too have certainty in what will happen when we die, and it guides and directs our daily lives, even to the point of radicalism.

What we know can change in an instant, shifting the ground beneath our feet and bring our fortresses of faith and understanding crumbling to the ground - SMASH!!!

Then nothing. 

But the chance to rebuild.

Because truly, no one really knows anything for certain. And it is that understanding, that weight of uncertainty that should encourage us all to talk less and listen a whole lot more. To be kind and patient and less judgmental, and to truly consider the holes in our damns because really, we don't know, even when we think we do.

And for many of us, the damn is about to beak.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Real People :  After 90 years, a Jewish woman eats bacon for the first time

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The taking of a buddy

With yet another horrific shooting, we turn, again, to the topic of guns and rights and gun rights, skimming over the simple and horrific truth that many people are going to bed tonight, and every night hereafter, without their husband, their wife, their son or daughter, their friend, and their buddy.

I think of what happened at my trial. His father got on the stand. His father called this kid his buddy.
That was his buddy. I took his buddy away from him.
Me?

How does that sit with me?

I showed this video to my students, and for the first time all year, they were silent. Until the "One voice. Your voice. Is powerful enough. To stop. One Kid. From picking up. One gun." flashed across the screen. 

Suddenly, they had an opinion, a voice, and something they needed to argue - guns.

Instead of discussing the answer that the man cannot answer, "How does that sit we me?" instead of dealing with the man whose tears fill his eyes as he pleads to the camera, "There is nothing you can do to make it right," the students started talking, passionately, about guns and rights and gun rights.

Because that's the easier conversation to have, even though it's the wrong one. .

So I drew a line down the center of the board. On one side I wrote, "Get rid of guns" and on the other side, "keep them." Then I allowed a brief pros and cons discussion of both. It went about as shallow as I had expected. 

"You can talk forever on either side" I said, showing the breadth of each side of the argument, "Because they're huge. But what we need to be talking about is this," and I pinched my fingers around the line that divided the two groups, "this is where the problem is because this is where humanity is." It's where the heart is.d

John Steinbeck, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech proclaimed that,

Humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of confusion. My great predecessor, William Faulkner, speaking here, referred to it as a tragedy of universal fear so long sustained that there were no longer problems of the spirit, so that only the human heart in conflict with itself seemed worth writing about.

In all of our gallantry, courage, compassion and love, we are also fully weak and full of the worst this world has to offer. Man has, as Steinbeck states, "become our greatest hazard." And when we reduce the pain and sorrow and loss of loved ones to an argument of gun control, we exchange communal empathy for individual rights and ensure another shooting.

Inmates crying and struggling with regret over the deepest mistakes of their lives shouldn't lead to battles over gun problems. Rather, it should invite discussions over people problems. 

Somehow, though, we aren't even talking at all.

Trevor Noah is right, when planes crash, we talk about plane safety, and when bridges collapse, we talk about infrastructure. But these discussions are different because although they may have to deal with human error, they don't have to deal with the ugliness of the human condition, and that makes them easier. 

Require longer training hours, and the problem is solved. Add a few million dollars to a budget and we can build better more high-tech planes. Problem solved. Or, at least, improved.

Yet after a mass shooting, a mass shooting, a mass shooting, a mass shooting, a mass shooting, we are not. We are not improving and we're getting worse. And we're getting worse because when it comes to discussing that thin line of humanity, we'd rather talk about guns or Muslims or black on black crime or white supremacists or hotels because they're easy to talk about. 

In an age of supreme technological advancement, when we have more information than we've ever had before and faster than at any time in our human history, yet, we are dying. Kids are committing suicide in gross numbers, mass shootings are common occurrences, and war (seemingly) is everywhere. 

We're in an advanced technological age that is killing our humanity because we're so averse, so scared, to discuss the thin and terrifying line that divides every argument: humanity, and the human condition. 

Churches claim to have the answer, so do teachers, parents, and science. Yet none of them do because all of them do, they're just too busy arguing over differences and sides and forgetting about the line, about us, and about what makes up the best and worst humanity has to offer.

In a recent podcast about creativity, the host spoke about the practice of getting thoughts out on a consistent basis so that when an opportunity comes along, we know the next step we need to take. We may not know what step to take after that, but that's okay because that's what the creative process is all about.

The same can be said for discussing the dhuman condition. 

I don't know how to solve the worst problems of humanity, but I know the next step: to talk about it. After that, I'm not sure what will happen, but I think that's okay because that is what life is all about - sharing the human being stuff with one another, allowing for differences and struggle, and affirming in one another that we're not alone. That we're not going to take sides, but rather, grab hold of the line. 

We need to talk about the best and worst of humanity and hope, believe, we might be able to prevent a kid from picking up a gun - not because he can't, but because he or she doesn't want to. Because they know the pain and sorrow of taking someone's buddy, as well as the finality of never being able to take it back. We need to talk about what it means to be human, to struggle with hate and sadness and the fear of being alone, about our struggles and doubts and deepest, darkest nightmares. Then, instead of giving answers or promising prayers, we need to love, forgive, and shower each other with empathy and grace.

Because that too is the human being stuff. And it’s the kind of stuff we long for, live for, and are made to strive for.

But first, a step.  

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  On Living  :   On Tolerance  :  Hatred in America

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Poems my wife sent me

The other night, I asked my wife if she thought I was beginning to pigeonhole myself - if I was always writing about the hardships of relationships and beginning to lose sight of the good and beautiful.

She shrugged. "Maybe," she said, "But if that's where you're at, maybe it's okay."

"Maybe," I said, still uncertain.  

This morning, she sent me these three poems. And they boosted my spirits.

All we can control

in this silly

and wildly perfect

life,

is the love

that we

choose to give out

without any regard

to ever

getting it back

in return.

-Tyler Knott Gregson- 

Perfect and yes and fully agree. I don't even want to say anything about it, for fear of ruining it.

Goodbye is a shaping word,

a lathe to the wood around us,

skilled hands to the marble

we once were.

I am carved, and I

am smoothed

by the losses, by the sound

of walking away.

I heard them say it, all of them,

and all the while,

I thought of home,

I thought of home,

I thought of

home.

-Tyler Knott Gregson-

I don't know what all the goodbyes have carved in me, and I'm pretty sure some have left me splintered, not smooth, but they have brought me home. To my front porch after a long day's work, eager to hug the giggles inside. They've brought me up the stairs, to cuddle and tickle and read with my kids at night, and they've brought me to my wife. My sweet and patient wife who shapes and sands and loves my rough and splintered edges. 

Because of home, we can choose to love without any regard to ever getting back in return. Because of home.

Run. For your life, for your joy, for your calm and peace of mind. Run. because your legs are strong and our lungs are aching for the taste of air. Run. Because what's the point of life spent walking in the middle?

-Tyler Knott Gregson-

More then ever, I sense the race set before me, and it is time to run - for my life, for my joy, and for the calm and peace of mind that comes with running toward a good and perfect prize. 

Run.

Away from the guilt and shame and burdens I can no longer carry or do anything about.

Run.

For purpose and excitement and love, with home in my heart, and life in my mind.

Run. 

Run.

Run.

Because my legs are strong and the road is long and there is much to do and little I can control.

It's time I get started.

Thank you, my good wife, for the poems you sent.

Thank you.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Poetry  :  Inspiration

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Things I mean to know

This morning, instead of hopping in the car and driving, I walked. It was brilliant. Brilliantly cold, and brilliantly convicting, like the heat of an afternoon sun after a freezing and wind scourged morning, because before the day even began, I was asked to consider everything I know, and how I know it. And I didn't have any answers.

What do we know, fully, and with confidence, but without knowing why? Without knowing the evidence, the facts, or even just simply the other side?

For me it's a lot of things. But when I first listened to this podcast, I wasn't considering me and what I did or did not know, I was considering others and what they don't know. Because from my perspective, they don't know a lot. And they don't even know it. 

The Episode is entitled, Things I Mean to Know by This American Life. 

This little soundbite is from the Prologue:

"I started looking into it and it was too hard." So, she, "jumped back into the ocean with the rest of us dummies." Because it was easier. Because getting to the bottom of things is a lot of work, especially when those things don't have easy or definable answers - when they deal with all that human being stuff.

When I heard these lines, I was about three blocks down from my house, kicking a small rock out of my path, and thinking of all those who could benefit from hearing these simple words. 

Then I turned the corner and headed down 6th street. The rock lost in someone's yard and the chill of the morning beginning to seep in. I pulled my hat down further then jammed my hands a bit further into my pockets. 

A thought was beginning to fester, and by the time I reached the my classroom and chair and Coleman thermos coffee, it was a wild and living thing.

Maybe I'm the one who's wrong?

In recent months I've been questioning myself, my faith, and my life more than I ever have before. Yet, somewhere in all that, I've found plenty of time and arguments for why others have been wrong, why things or ideas have been the source of my befuddlement, and why if everyone could just be as open-minded or loving or accepting as me, things would be pretty damn good.

Then I walked to work and kicked a rock and listened to stories of people talking about what they thought they knew. 

On the walk home, Megan Phelps-Roper describe her time as a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, "Most of the time, I would walk away from those conversations feeling like I had won. I never set out to have my mind changed."

Once I saw that we were not the ultimate arbiters of divine truth but flawed human beings, I couldn't justify our actions. . . That period was full of turmoil. But one part I return to often is a surprising realization I had during that time - that it was a relief and a privilege to let go of the harsh judgments that instinctively ran through my mind about nearly every person I saw. I realized that now I needed to learn. I needed to listen.

And so do I. Holy shit so do I.

I need to listen to those who frustrate me, who hurt me, who think incomplete and false thoughts about me. Because they might be right. 

Holy shit they might be right. At least in part.

Because,

You're not letting go of your truth but understanding someone else's. You need that if you're going to build a bridge and get across and get through.

But to be honest, this is really hard because even through I want to get through, I also want to win - at least in part - because even though I want to understand, I also want to be understood. And even though I want to build bridges and find a way to let go of the harsh judgements that instinctively ran through my mind, I also want to be validated and affirmed in what and who I am.  

Which makes the conversation difficult, I think, because - out of self preservation - I talk more than I listen, I defend more than hear, and I explain more than I try to understand.

And that might be the first times I've really understood that. 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Open Thoughts  :  Other Inspiring Podcasts

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Hands rake leaves; faith opens refrigerators

(Photo by @storyanthology)

I know there’s nothing there, because I just looked five minutes ago. But there's that something that keeps drawing me to the fridge, looking for something to eat, to snack on, or to keep me distracted. So I go once more, open the fridge once more, and am not surprised but somehow disappointed to find that it’s just like it was before.

I’m not hungry, and I’m not there because I’m hungry, I’m there because I’m restless, because I don’t want to do whatever it is I need to do, like lesson plan or grade essays or wrestle through some difficult thought for a blog post.

Or call my parents.

So I head back to the fridge, even though I know it won’t help, because it’s easier, because I’d rather hope for a miracle than deal with reality, and because it’s safe. Just like faith.

And I’m pretty tired of wasting my time with both.

This past Saturday, Judah should have been outside raking while Josey and I sat in the living room, talking. Instead though, he kept coming inside to get a drink of water, to get a snack, and then to get another drink of water – while the leaves continued to cover the ground – and I got frustrated, “Get outside and work,” I said. So he did. With a sulk and a huff, he shoved his shoes back on and shuffled out the door to the yard, the leaves, and the task of learning how to rake all on his own.

Judah’s never raked a yard before.

But I sent him out anyway, because I believe, deeply, that yard work can help build a young boy’s character, that it can instill in him a strong work ethic, grit, and the deep satisfaction of a job well done. And I was confident I was doing the right thing, that him being outside was better than watching movies or playing videogames, and that someday, even if many years from now, he would thank me for these days.

So I refilled my coffee and headed back to the living room. From the window, I could see him pushing leaves around, kicking small sticks, and generally accomplishing very little. And it was then that I realized just how fragile, just how weak and useless faith can be, if left to simple devices.

Judah doesn’t know how to rake, how to stuff leaves in the garbage can, or what it means to put in a hard days work. Because he is ten. And no matter how many times I send him out or how much faith I have that we’re doing the right thing, he won’t learn it on his own. I can hope for it, pray incessantly about it, even find empowering quotes that encourage leaving him in the front yard, by himself, to wrestle and struggle through this obstacle – because only when we don’t know what to do can we grow.

Or, I can put on my shoes and teach him how to rake in rows and how to stomp the leaves in the garbage can. I can tell stories of “when I was your age” and how I used to hate raking our giant yard but sometimes wish I were there again, smelling the fire, and fighting with my brothers and sisters and how, just like he’s experiencing now, those hours and days working outside formed blisters and built character.

Instead of believing that raking leaves will teach and mold Judah, I can chase him around the yard, stuff leaves down his pants, and show him what it means to be a family and struggle and work and live together.

Or, I can head to the fridge, to prayer, and wait for my son to finish.

I can call my parents.

Faith, like running to refrigerators, can be a destructive distraction from doing what truly needs to be done, leaving us frustrated and empty and staring at a fridge full of food and asking, “Why is there nothing to eat?”

Because what we’re craving isn’t in the fridge. It’s in us - our hands, our feet - and in the simple moments of choosing to live by faith. Not wait on it. 

We are Witnesses : Documentaries of crime, punishment, and humanity

To see things from a different perspective is one of the most difficult things we have to do.

- Jeannette Armstrong

“We Are Witnesses,” is a project of nineteen short videos, each between two and six minutes long yet, together, provide  rare 360-degree portrait of the state of crime and punishment in the United States (via). 

More importantly though, these short videos also portray the raw totality of humanity - the ugliness, the imperfection, the forgiveness, and the hope. Because life isn't perfect, filled happy endings and right now, in-the-moment decisions are terrifying and full of error. 

And at then end of the day, everyone just wants to make it home safe. 

If we allow ourselves to see life and circumstances and the people around us - especially those filled with stereotypes - with even the slightest bit of compassion and empathy and understanding, we can, day by day, all be saved. 

Even if it is the most difficult thing we have to do.

Ed Gavagan : Stabbing Victim

It became more and more important for me to convey to him . . .  uh  . . . to convey this idea that we were each gonna get a second chance.

And you should do something with that.

Tommy Porr : Formaly incarcerated for 30 years

That's when more things started changing with me. The compassion, the love, the understanding, being human again - trying to be human again.

To love another human being that you really don't know or show compassion to someone you really don't know, that's all new to me. And that's what saved, saved me.

Steve Osborne : Retired N.Y.P.D

Nine-five percent or more of the cops who work out there are just decent, hard working people, try'n a go out, try'n a do the best they can, and go home in one piece at the end of the night. 

I think people don't realize how difficult it is, night after night after night, having to make split second, life and death decisions, and always have'n to be right. 

Erica Garner : Daughter of Eric Garner

I felt like, wow. In my saddest moment when I didn't know how to feel and I seen all these people out here for my dad . . . that just made me feel, empowered in a way.

Because we can all be more than mere witnesses to the crime and punishiment in America today. We can also be the hope, if we want to be. If we choose to be.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Giving Back to Society, from Prison  :  Chris Paul forgives the kids who killed his grandfather

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David Sedaris on Keeping a Diary in the age of Over-Sharing

My advice to a young writer who wants to start a diary or keep one going is to not read over what you wrote yesterday because it's going to stink. Do it for a year before you go back. Give yourself some distance.

But the key is, and forever will be, is to keep writing. Because who knows what might happen.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Ira Glass on Storytelling  :  KURT VONNEGUT’S GREATEST WRITING ADVICE

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My Fares : The people Joseph Rodriguez saw through the windshield.

Joseph Rodriguez drove a cab from 1977 to 1985, and in the last two of those years, he was studying to be a photographer. He lost his first set of gear in a classic ’70s New York stabbing and mugging, but with a new camera, he documented what he saw on the job (via).

“I loved the frenetic energy of the city at that time. I once picked up a guy from the Hellfire club, an S&M club, and by the time I dropped him off on the Upper East Side, he had changed his leather cap and everything and put on a pink oxford shirt and some penny loafers. ‘Good morning, sir,’ the doorman said.”

Meatpacking District | “ ‘Don’t I look sexy?’ she said. ‘Hey, how are you today?’ My response was ‘Oh, you look very pretty.’ And then she did that.”

We are what we've always been. Imperfect, beautiful, and fantastically human. 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Photography  :  Joseph Rodriguez Photography  :  Early Photos of NYC

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Phantom Thread and Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond

Phantom Thread is Daniel Day-Lewis’s final film before retirement, and I can't quiet figure out how I feel about it. Both him retiring, and the film.

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and is the second collaboration between Day-Lewis and Anderson, following 2008’s oil-boom drama There Will Be Blood. As with that film, the music for Phantom Thread has been composed by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood.

The simple answer to this movie is, "Yes," even if it looks a bit depressing. Because he's retiring, and because of the film.

This fascinating new documentary from American Movie director Chris Smith does several things at once: it is a portrait of two of the most inspired and original comic performers of the last half-century; an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at an actor's total immersion into an exceedingly challenging role; and a personal, heartfelt homage from one genius mischief-maker to another. Get ready to laugh. And squirm (via).

And I can't wait.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Movies

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Microsculpture : The Insect Portraits of Levon Biss

what I loved most about these pictures and his process was the reminder that everyday things, everyday annoyances can often become something very different, very beautiful even, if only seen in a different way.

And that is encouraging. 

Microsculpture is a ground breaking project by the British photographer Levon Biss that presents insect specimens from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History like never before . . . Microsculpture was first exhibited in the main court of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.  Surrounded by the museum’s stunning Neo-Gothic architecture, the largest of Microsculpture’s photographic prints measured up to three metres across and surrounded the visitor.  Seen alongside the tiny insect specimens themselves, this huge transformation of scale offered a unique viewing experience" (via). 

Although much smaller than three meters, these images are still stunning.

Jewel Longhorn Beetle

At high magnification the surface of even the plainest looking beetle or fly is completely transformed as details of their microsculpture become visible: ridges, pits or engraved meshes all combine at different spatial scales in a breath-taking intricacy. It is thought that these microscopic structures alter the properties of the insect’s surface in different ways, reflecting sunlight, shedding water, or trapping air (via).

Marion Flightless Moth

Levon photographs the insect in "approximately 30 different sections, depending the size of the specimen.  Each section is lit differently with strobe lights to bring out the micro sculptural beauty of that particular section of the body.  For example, I will light and shoot just one antennae, then after I have completed this area I will move onto the eye and the lighting set up will change entirely to suit the texture and contours of that specific part area of the body.  I continue this process until I have covered the whole surface area of the insect" (via).

Paris Peacock

Ruby Tailed Wasp

You can see many more of these ridiculous images here, and if you do, don't pass up on the Treehopper. It might be my favorite.

Treehopper

But the Branch Back Treehopper is pretty amazing too . . . and the Tricolored Jewel Beetle. 

Here's the madness behind the process:

You can also check Levon Biss' TED Talk and more of his non-insect work here.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Photography  :  National Geographic

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The Mountains Never Lie

But this picture does. Completely. Judah even picked up on it, "What's so great about cranes?" he asked. But he didn't see what I saw: a little cropping on the left to cut off the construction, a kneeling down to place the bush in front of the house, and of course, a clever little title about fresh mountain air on a crisp fall day with the family.

Never mind the highway behind us or the golf course to the far right. 

You don't see those things, only Judah and I do, but in recent days I've begun to wonder if, over time, he won't see them either. Rather, when he stumbles across this picture, I wonder if he'll only see the blue lake and towering mountain. If instead of talking about the construction that surrounded this picture, he'll recall surprising his auntie at University, picking out pumpkins at an old pumpkin patch farm, and playing UNO, in a cabin, long after Dad wanted to go to bed. I wonder if, when he looks back on this weekend, he'll remember the singing to our family's favorite tunes, reading Harry Potter in the front seat of the van, and watching tumble weeds bounce across the windy roads. Because, at the end of it all, the crane doesn't matter, and his mind will subconsciously crop it out.

However, when I look back on this weekend, I will forever see the cranes, the squeaky breaks that I can't afford to fix, the meals we had to budget, and the gas we had to syphon from some car in the middle of the night because we couldn't afford to fill our tank. But so what. It was worth it. And I'd do it again next weekend if I could.

Judah wasn't sheltered from those things, he was there with us, listening to our conversations and having to hear "no, we can't afford that." He even held the hose to the car while I sucked the gas out, but I don't think he'll remember those moments, and if he does, he will for sure remember them with a different tone, just like when I was his age my dad lost his wallet during the first few days of our two-week journey out West. I remember him losing it, looking for it, and I vaguely recall a discussion between him and Mom as to how to handle it. But that's it. What I remember more is the camping, the hiking, evening fires, eating every meal, sleeping warmly, and playing cards with my family. Whatever happened to the lost credit cards and driver's license, I've never known; how Dad payed for everything never crossed my mind, because it never seemed to cross his. And we had a great time.

By the way, Judah and I never syphoned anyone's gas, so relax. We did, however, pee behind the KOA cabin instead of walking to the bathroom. Which isn't even close to the same thing.

On the drive home, with The Lumineers blaring, I had some time to think about the weekend, and one of the thoughts that crossed my mind was this: what if kids collect memories of family and security not because they're sheltered from the harsh realities, but because they experience them with their parents, along side their parents, watching and evaluating, and then responding and feeding off of how they respond. 

What if Judah and Eden and Zion hear, over and over, "we can't afford that" but still experience a great time with rocks, simple lakes, and free parks? What if while they color and draw the scene that passes outside their window, they overhear Mom and Dad discussing - arguing even - budgets and plans and schedules, then watch them kiss and laugh and reconcile? Doesn't that teach them how to argue? How to work through conflict? And how to find the simple joys amidst life's many limitations?

Doesn't that teach them how to be human?

I think so. I think it teaches them that Mom and Dad are fallible, that we make mistakes and seek forgiveness, and that we don't need money or gadgets or things to enjoy life and each other. I think it instills a sort of subconscious safety-net for their fragile minds that reminds them that no matter how much they fail or struggle or fall short, we're still here, that we're still a family, and as such, we're gonna go camping. 

In the future, if and when my kids do look back and remember the cranes, I don't want won't lie to them, I won't tell them they're not remembering it clearly or that they just need to remember the lake and mountains and "forget about the cranes." Because they were there. They were part of the scenery, part of the adventure, but we enjoyed the mountains and pumpkins anyway. 

Because that's what families do.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  The Mountains have a Way  :  On Parenting

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Who's your doormat?

We are at the deepest risk of losing, forever, our connection with each other - family, friends, collogues, students, spouses, kids, whatever, and it isn't technology's fault, religion's fault, education, drugs, or any other THING'S fault. It's ours. 

When we look around, when we take time to be aware of life and things and people around us, when updates on friends and family are deeper than Facebook walls or Instagram posts, when we no longer measure success with numbers, test scores, and resume accomplishments, we might actually hear the groans and moans of the dead and decaying humanity that we so mindlessly abuse and use and trample. Every. Single. Day.

But who has time for that when a promotion is right around the corner, blog posts need to be posted, or when longly held accomplishments are just out of reach and I just need to stand on you for a little bit so I can reach the next rung and, maybe I'll see you later? 

This ending completely caught me off guard. And ever since, I can't stop thinking about it - for myself for sure, but  for our world and smaller societies that we live in. We're all proud enough to not straighten our tie and simply lie down and let someone walk and trample stand all over us, but do we support those that try and stand up? That no longer want to hold our coats or open doors for us? 

Do we notice that they're trying?

Do we notice them at all?

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Humanity  :  Regular People, like us  :  Real People, Real Stories

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Getting out more : Laramie Mountains

Be back a Sunday!

Open Thoughts : This is where I am

For the past few days, even weeks, I've been in a sort of rut with my writing and general creativity. Specifically, I've been wrestling with two larger thoughts - one on family and the other on guns, and after several hours spent on both, I got nothing. Every time I look at whatever I wrote the night before, I hate it, delete it, and start all over.

And this is more than just a bit discouraging. 

How is this so hard? Why am I unable to think or articulate simple thoughts? Why does it all seem so flimsy and shallow?

I don't know, but over the past several days, I've begun to wonder if I should just give up on writing and blogging and pursuing this crazy idea that I might some day be considered a legitimate author. Because what's the point?

Good writers should be able to write, daily, and produce material worth reading. Good writers shouldn't misspell or misuse words and they shouldn't struggle so damn much to call simple ideas  to a page, it should just happen, with the ease of routine, because they're good writers and that's what good writers do. 

I'm not sure when this slippery beast of doubt crept in, but like a silverback gorilla who's bathed in butter and just slipped through an open attic window, this sucker is rather difficult to get a hold of and shove out the door. 

So instead of writing, I watched this:

Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future day in and day out. Not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality.

I'm not sure about you, but I found this short talk somewhat encouraging but also fantastically terrifying because what she doesn't acknowledge is the absolute true possibility that although I'm working hard, I'm doing it all wrong. 

Because even though I believe that "the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with {my} effort" that doesn't mean all and every piece of work and drop of sweat is growing and leading me in the right direction. And my deepest fear, I guess, is this: what if it's not?

I don't know.

I'm sure there are little anecdotes of "just try your best and it will all work out," or "it's okay to fail because that's where you learn and grow" and all that other bullshit we say to ourselves to make us feel better and to keep our spirits high, but I'm kinda tired of such empty talk and hollow promises. Because they're exactly that, hollow promises. 

So what now?

I don't know.

Therefore, like Angela Duckworth, that's where I'm going to end my thoughts because that's where I'm at. And I'm not okay with that. 

Here's to tomorrow.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Open Thoughts  :  On Creativity

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A Disturbing Film About the Night in 1939 When 20,000 American Nazis Rallied in New York City

In a noble effort to provide information helpful to current times, director Marshall Curry from Field of Vision gathered historical footage from various different archives to create the short film “A Night at the Garden“. This disturbing and difficult film spotlights that night in 1939 when the German American Bund (Nazi) gathered at Madison Square Garden in the heart of New York City to proclaim their patriotism as German-born Fritz Kuhn called for a return to a “white, gentile-ruled United States” with “gentile-controlled labor unions free from Jewish Moscow-directed domination" (via).

When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled “made in Germany”; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, “Americanism.” – Halford E. Luccock

The protester who jumped on the stage is Isidore Greenbaum. After being pulled off, he was savagely beaten, stripped of his trousers and fined for disrupting the peace (via).

Curry explained why he felt the need to make this film:

The footage is so powerful, it seems amazing that it isn’t a stock part of every high school history class. But I think the rally has slipped out of our collective memory in part because it’s scary and embarrassing. It tells a story about our country that we’d prefer to forget. We’d like to think that when Nazism rose up, all Americans were instantly appalled. But while the vast majority of Americans were appalled by the Nazis, there was also a significant group of Americans who were sympathetic to their white supremacist, anti-Semitic message. When you see 20,000 Americans gathering in Madison Square Garden you can be sure that many times that were passively supportive (via).

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  History  :  WWII Vets Reuniting with Japanese Soldiers

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Steinbeck's Nobel Prize Speech

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Min Vackra Fru, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I thank the Swedish Academy for finding my work worthy of this highest honor.

In my heart there may be doubt that I deserve the Nobel award over other men of letters whom I hold in respect and reverence - but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.

It is customary for the recipient of this award to offer personal or scholarly comment on the nature and the direction of literature. At this particular time, however, I think it would be well to consider the high duties and the responsibilities of the makers of literature.

Such is the prestige of the Nobel award and of this place where I stand that I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession and in the great and good men who have practiced it through the ages.

Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair.

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed.

The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species.

Humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of confusion. My great predecessor, William Faulkner, speaking here, referred to it as a tragedy of universal fear so long sustained that there were no longer problems of the spirit, so that only the human heart in conflict with itself seemed worth writing about.

Faulkner, more than most men, was aware of human strength as well as of human weakness. He knew that the understanding and the resolution of fear are a large part of the writer's reason for being.

This is not new. The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.

Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat - for courage, compassion and love. 

In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

The present universal fear has been the result of a forward surge in our knowledge and manipulation of certain dangerous factors in the physical world.

It is true that other phases of understanding have not yet caught up with this great step, but there is no reason to presume that they cannot or will not draw abreast. Indeed it is a part of the writer's responsibility to make sure that they do.

With humanity's long proud history of standing firm against natural enemies, sometimes in the face of almost certain defeat and extinction, we would be cowardly and stupid to leave the field on the eve of our greatest potential victory.

Understandably, I have been reading the life of Alfred Nobel - a solitary man, the books say, a thoughtful man. He perfected the release of explosive forces, capable of creative good or of destructive evil, but lacking choice, ungoverned by conscience or judgment.

Nobel saw some of the cruel and bloody misuses of his inventions. He may even have foreseen the end result of his probing - access to ultimate violence - to final destruction. Some say that he became cynical, but I do not believe this. I think he strove to invent a control, a safety valve. I think he found it finally only in the human mind and the human spirit. To me, his thinking is clearly indicated in the categories of these awards.

They are offered for increased and continuing knowledge of man and of his world - for understanding and communication, which are the functions of literature. And they are offered for demonstrations of the capacity for peace - the culmination of all the others.

Less than fifty years after his death, the door of nature was unlocked and we were offered the dreadful burden of choice.

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.

Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world - of all living things.

The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand.

Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have.

Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope.

So that today, St. John the apostle may well be paraphrased ...

In the end is the Word, and the Word is Man - and the Word is with Men (via)

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  On Stories  :  Nobel Speeches

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