Facebook

Facebook

I read a lot of negative stuff and listen to far more about how bad Facebook is. It may have its flaws and experience growing pains that verge into areas of behavior that could be questionable, but I hope these blemishes are repairable. Social media is evolving and is the first platform of its kind to connect so many people in the largest gathering ever. To me, it’s a kind of Woodstock, and the information fills in for the bands. Earlier today, I wrote the following on someone else’s post:

“What makes Facebook valuable to me is the diversity of people who have congregated in a single location; it is up to the individual to choose who to hang out with and what qualities of people meet their needs. Is this really so different than the real world?

For example, I go to a nightclub where 300 potential friends are also at. Statistically, some of those people are going to jail; others will go home to abuse a spouse; there are radicals to the left and right; some have crap diets, limited intelligence, or are poor dancers. I DON’T friend them all. I have to filter them, and if it’s the only club in town, then I can either bitch about what I have, move to the village that doesn’t have a club, or open my own.

Facebook is what we make of it. I’ve not friended 1.5 billion members; it’s only 180 people. Then I rub shoulders with maybe 500 others in places like Synth and Eurorack forums on Facebook. Occasionally, I bump into someone, and I think, “Yeah, this person might be interesting,” and so I join a conversation.”

Why does this have to be so difficult and rife with drama? Could it be because we are missing something in our own lives and need to blame anything else instead of taking responsibility for our own decisions to eat all the junk food, be it social or edible, that is within our grasp?

Time To Go

Maine License Plate "VEGGIES"

On May 12, 2007, while driving south on the Atlantic Highway between Belfast and Camden, Maine, we found this license plate. For some reason, we dragged it back to Arizona and for the past 11 years, it has sat on a bookshelf gathering dust. Today it is finally heading to the landfill, but it couldn’t have traveled 2,830 miles west and hung out for over 10 years without it being put to use for something so here it is going up on my blog. Maybe someday someone will reach out and let us know that we found their license plate way back when.

Randomness

Random light

Looking through a glass brick in the late afternoon the bending light was animating in random patterns dependent on where I allowed my eyes to gaze. All weekend I’ve been kind of random in my studies of everything from the beta Eurorack module I’m testing to exploring Allegorithmic’s Substance Painter 2018, Blender addon Speedflow and Wazou’s RMB Pie Menu to learning more about Hedgehog Connect that allows Blender and Substance Painter to exchange texture data. I set up my Wacom tablet after years of it sitting unused in anticipation of me putting it back to use. A Mocha Pro for After Effects tutorial was neglected, but Caroline and I hit the halfway point in the book she’s reading to me in the car: “The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.”

Caroline’s weekend played out by her meeting with a few other women to look at block design and profile drafts, terms that relate to weaving. She’s also been working on a crochet project that has to do with the art installation “Arizona!” that will premiere this November at the Scottsdale Canal. Her 8-shaft floor loom also figured in her activities as she’s been exploring a weave structure called Summer and Winter for the making of coasters. If that wasn’t enough fiber-related stuff she even found time on her spinning wheel to make yarn while she boned up on her German while talking to her mom in Frankfurt, Germany.

John, Shari, and Amanda – The Long Lost Siblings

John Wise, Shari Wiesman, and Amanda Goff in Tempe, Arizona

These two women on my left are Shari Weisman and Amanda Goff – they are my sisters. We have been estranged off and on for the better part of the majority of our adult lives. What brought us together was the fact on this day we had to inform our mother that she was going to be moved into a group home in eight days. Our mother Karen Goff had a stroke back in October and apparently made the decision that she wouldn’t participate in her recovery even though her doctors gave her a 95% chance of doing so. A few minutes after snapping this first-ever selfie of the three of us together we walked in to inform our mom who was absolutely nonplussed as to her fate. Some days after this decision a hospice worker visited her and let us know that she qualified for hospice assistance as she was neglectful and even combative on eating or drinking, it appeared our mother was deciding to commit suicide. I’m posting this image with the date of March 13th as that’s when I shot it, but I’m writing this on the 25th of March as I’ve been informed that our mother is breathing laboriously and has been in a morphine-induced cloud with nearly no communication for the past five days. The end is likely near.

My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine circa 1989

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vuH2iZDp3o  CLICK HERE TO WATCH SHORT CLIP!!!

Back in the day….way back like in the 1980’s I used to move around Europe and on many occasions, I’d meet up with a band and video-record their show, always with permission.

Somebody from Germany was recently looking for photographs of My Bloody Valentine from another show and so I thought I’d share this with him. If you are a fan there are about 10 minutes of interview followed by the entire performance of the group. The sound is crap because my crap camera back then and lack of professional microphones produced crap sound. If anyone has any tips on how to repair that I’m all ears.