Local Scenes

Goat and Volcano

It took 20+ years for me to finally drive to Guatemala so I wasn't going to leave immediately. I wanted to spend enough time here that I got to know tailors by name, my favorite restaurants, the fruit vendors, watch the government collapse, etc. Maybe I fit in here because I'm almost living a normal life and when I was living in Austin I was treated like dirt because I was living like an escaped convict. But Austin rent is around $750 a month and it's $120 a month here. I could probably find a cheaper situation but I like where I'm at. Still, change is unavoidable.

Musical Musings

I've been fooling myself for 20 years. More than 20 years I've been playing guitar off and on, even took a class at a community college. I've read books, methods, weaseled into master classes to listen but mostly I've pondered what it means to be a musician and recently, with the help of Jamey Aebersold's methods, I've concluded that a musician is not someone who pokes at an instrument to produce notes. No, that's a technician. A musician needs an instrument to release the notes in his head. This is such a fine distinction that it's rarely even mentioned in method books. 6 years in college music classes and this topic did not come up. I approached the instrument as a means to play a song and I memorized the places where I put my fingers to produce the right notes, but that's actually backwards to what a musician does. I never really internalized the notes. Maybe I memorized the beginning and the end, some fancy licks and what they sounds like, but mostly I memorized the mechanical/physical manipulations to produce the notes. I am basically pantomiming the act of being a musician, going through the motions, and memorizing all the movements requires to play a song...but there is a big difference between this and memorizing the notes, the sound of a song, and then using the instrument to produce those notes. Maybe this is something that can't be taught, but must be learned through experience, but wouldn't it help knowing that's not only the goal but knowing the mental reasoning behind it? I think it will, so I'm going to try to write down my understanding.

This is a big topic, something I've been working toward for years, so I can't break it all down in one essay, but I can give a pedagogical comparison.

Wolf Quest Part XV: Closing Thoughts

The wolf quest about was an experiment, like most of my decisions. I prefer to be surprised from one day to the next and culturally I’m disloyal. I don’t see what other people see in society. I see chaos leading toward the destruction of everything I built. The prospect of living long enough to see everything I participated in either destroyed or underwater can only be ignored for so long. But it’s inevitable so unless I’m really amused by an activity or challenged or entertained, then it’s all academic, history in the making. Human development is too messy for me, too haphazard, chaotic, too much error and too little trial. I recognize that there is no pause button, but there is also no immediate demand for recklessness. That can be avoided, but the tradition is to leap before we look, and the science suggest that has doomed the planet. So, it all comes back to the debate about what can be salvaged from an self-destructive society? Can anything be salvaged? Why? Why salvage anything, any custom or technology? Destroyers of Planets are rare phenomenon so we all need to pay close attention to what is happening around us so if future genetics retain our memories then there’s a chance humanity will develop a collective fear, and that fear will be strong enough not to test.

Why is July Pronounced Juu-Leye?

This makes no sense. The word Duly, as in "Duly noted" is pronounced "Do-lee." But July is not pronounced "Ju-lee." or "Ju-lie"...instead it is pronounced completely differently than all other 'ly' endings. Terribly, traumatically, softly, sadly, justly....but July is Jew-Leye. It was named after Julius Caesar, whose name is also not pronounced as it is spelled. See-zer instead of Say-Czar. But if Julius was the name then we should pronounced it "juu-lee" because that would be abbreviating Julius. But we've ruined the spelling and also the origin of this word and deviated from all the rules of pronouncing 'ly' endings.

Wolf Quest Part XIV: South to the Wolf

Way up on the northern tip of New Foundland

For all the trouble the Transmission gave me after it lost 2nd gear in Quebec the reckoning would arrive after the trip ended. 2nd gear actually isn't used much and unlike a manual transmission that falls apart all at once after a gradual slide, a 3 speed C4 uses one gear at a time and with 2nd gear completely gone because the transmission band that clamps down on the drum had lost all friction material, with enough pressure, third gear will be fine. Yes, the batteries and exhaust fell apart but everything else miraculously needed no maintenance. Fate would not cooperate with providing a ship to Ellesmere Island, but many other problems could've caused delays or even cancellation of this trip. Now I've read a great deal more about the obstacles overcome for other Econoline owners so I know that without a doubt the van can go on and on. My personal suspicion is that only gas prices will cause the retirement of this van. Anything can be fixed. Furthermore, within a week I can personally rebuild any one vehicle component. I'm almost looking forward to the day I replace all the differential bearings. It's the one realm I haven't investigated too closely. An 9 inch rear differential. It's pretty complicated but every part is available and there's even a dvd repair video to show you how to rebuild it. The only things that worried me were the backlash settings and the crush washers but I know the people to ask. There's an art to rebuilding differentials, and a shop would probably charge $400+, but I hope I get to tackle it on my own terms like the transmission project back in Tejas.