it's official now: i live in the DESERT

this morning i was out on a bike ride and a real live ROAD-RUNNER crossed my path.
i am sure glad it wasn't a black cat!
i think it means good luck when a road runner crosses your path... right?

it didn't make a "beep-beep" noise, and it wasn't carrying an Acme brand anvil, so i can't be CERTAIN of the bird's identification, but i am confident anyway.

life in scottsdale: a rainbow greeted my arrival!

this was the view from my apartment a day or two after i arrived. the local monsoon season was weak this year (it usually rains a LOT in late summer) but i saw a few nice thunderstorms.

i am close enough to these mountains that i can SEE that the air is clearer here than in phoenix proper, where one cannot see an object a mile away without noticing the haze.

it is still WAY too hot to hike in these hills, but a month or so from now the temps will settle down to allow my hiking and biking. until then, i am glad as heck that i chose an apartment complex with a nice pool...

interdependence day

alright then. i have a new goal, focus, plan, topic for discussion.

it seems to me that our current situation regarding cannabis is quite stupid and even counter-productive. we should legalize cannabis, which will reduce the strain on our legal systems (police, courts and jails) and even bring in some much-needed tax revenues. i think it will also reduce the violence in the streets because gangs battle for turf in regard to the lucrative market of now-illegal drugs. this is true on both sides of the border: mexicans are killing each other to get the profits of this trade.

st stupid's day parade

the high point of the parade is the sock exchange, performed in front of the pacific stock exchange building.
why don't they do this in new york in front of the "real" stock exchange?

and maybe somebody should bring along a portable stock (a.k.a. pillory) with volunteers for bondage. "stocks and bonds", no?



no collection of fans of saint stupid would be complete without the mad hatter...

the first church of the last laugh is the world's largest church: six and a half billion members, most of whom do not even know that they are members of this ancient religion.

a poem to end revels with no end at all = an end of ending

Revels re-revealed

For just a few short seasons of mundanity
Our village will disperse and disappear
But this will not result in dire calamity
For what was once belov’d is ever dear.

We celebrate the circle, not the silly line.
As fire stays the same the while it burns,
And each year’s summer’s air is warm and feels divine,
So time stops (in a sense) as time returns.

Here is a law of paradox on our dear earth:
All things that come around remain the same!
Of course there is an otherness in their rebirth
And every play and player must stake claim.

A spring is a spring is a spring as we all know
And Revels will reveal how this is ever so.

revels season

i know i should post all sorts of stories about backstage revels interactions, but i shall not. backstage is offstage; and what is onstage is public.
this year's show is set in bavaria, so we FINALLY get german music in the revels! we will sing beethoven's ninth symphony as an audience sing-along. this should be the height of fun for the show. strangely i had never sung the Ode to Joy before...

the recurring theme is saint nikolaus, and how he is not quite the same as santa claus. as always the revels will look fabulous, sound great and invite everybody into the village for seasonal songs and a heartfelt blessing.



december 11-20 at the scottish rite center in their glorious hemidemispherical theater... right on the lake in oakland.

glowing buildings

another of my favourite accidental artworks: the setting sun reflects off of buildings in the distance.
this ephemeral moment is among the reasons i love to carry a camera.