Giving Thanks

Giving thanks...missing my bestie Rheannon and her Jim this holiday season.  Needlepoint Turkeys are Jim's Specialty.  The monsoon in Seattle this November is recalling many memories with Rheannon when we rode together as bike messengers in Seattle.  I began my illustrious courier career the week before Thanksgiving in 2004.  We had record wet from the very first day.  I quickly realized that gear is paramount in persistent rain.  The infamous Corndog was the one to talk to about a bag that can keep 2 1/2 ft. of legal documents dry day in and day out.

Dank Bags.  Seattle.  A match made in heaven.  When mobius was no more than building bikes for my messenger friends in my living room, Cory constructed my first real messenger bag with mobius cycle embroidered on the flap, lovingly recreating my logo.  Now don't go asking for this favor of favors.  My bag was a one off.  These aren't laser age graphics, no.  Cory simply makes the best waterproof bag out of the finest materials 'cause he needs his bag to stay dry.  He was his first customer and his first messenger bag, over 10 years ago, was the first Dank Bag.  Now Cory builds in his studio at mobius.  So if you're out there getting wet, remember there's help in here for staying dry.

Cloudy Skies

This Friday we send plutonium to Mars. Lately, I've been asking myself why we aren't accomplishing more in space. We have an international space station in orbit but haven't really made much progress since the Apollo missions (which used the most powerful rocket yet, Saturn V). Part of the reason is fuel. Liquid fuel can be turned on and off. It can be used in more precise maneuvers. Solid fuel burns continuously, all at once, yet allows for lighter, less complicated rockets to be built. But, one of the most recent concerns is space junk:

Why so wasteful? Because we can. Because our abundance allows us the luxury of waste. Flight paths have to be carefully corrected in order to avoid crashing into this junk which is rocketing around the earth at 20 times the speed of sound. In order to protect the space craft from the debris, they must be made more impact resistant which makes them heavier. This extra weight in turn requires more fuel. We instead squander our last 50 years of liquid fuel miserably commuting individually. We spend even more fuel to create Genetically Modified Organisms for human consumption to replace the biodiverse plant life which was once abundantly available on our planet. The fruit of our abundance:

Earth now wears a trash halo.

Perspective Shift

Which comes first thought or matter?

Up until recently, our culture has tended to believe that since matter is perceivable, it makes sense to believe in the solidity of objects. Quantum Mechanics has thrown a wrench into this idea due to the insubstantial nature of photons. Where is the photon? How fast is it going? Where is the electron in it's orbit around the nucleus? In order to answer this question we have to pin the proverbial photon down to one space in time or speed. Turns out, when we aren't looking, it's off being infinite and wavelike, existing instead in probability.

These are Quantum Conundrums.

How can a photon be a wave and a particle? Where the heck is that electron? A perspective shift may be in order. I recently watched The Quantum Activist movie. Dr. Goswami shows that if we see consciousness, or the act of looking, as the reason the photon wave "chooses" to be a particle when measured by us, these conundrums instantly clear up. Consciousness begets reality. If we allowed our way of seeing the world to shift to consciousness begets matter, our responsibility would be to what kind of world we want to create.

Thinking as creation. Stew on that one...

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Carl Sagan

or maybe:

Consciousness is the ground of all being.
Dr. Amit Goswami

Phase Change

Sinewy veins of red. Phase change. The beauty of decomposition. The earth tilts away from the sun a little more each day. The slow dance of fall is quickened here. Our winter is upon us. Tea time. Books and cozy blankets. I love fall.

Freshly Dessicated

Leica CL + Leitz Summicron-C 40mm f:2

Soft petals.  Hard contrast.
Petals like tongues.
Blurred to beauty.
Freshly dessicated.

Beauty can be found by looking | grain. | mobius | infinite resolution
Photos by Taylor Hurley aka 

Diaphanous Clouds

Why is this blog called grain? Why do I tumble as Infinite Resolution? The subtlety of these diaphanous clouds, the emotive force of their fluff can only be captured on film. Thanks to those little silver specks dancing and clumping toward light we have a type of definition that seems as real as the clouds themselves. Silver interpreting light. grain.  Somehow, as digital approaches infinite resolution, the crispness and clarity of the images lack a certain nostalgic emotion film captures.  I see it reflected in the eyes.  Yet here we have a digital representation of a film photo.  What's more real?  What's more beautiful?  I like both.  Soft like kitten or crisp like apple?  Both.