April 2004
This month the heavy-weights come out ...
Herman Hesse and Hieronymus BOSCH
And ... is this a "blog"?
--
Steppenwolf posted: 4-24-04
Running Wild
I used to run along the Boise River with my best friend - Tora - an australian shepard mix. Sometimes we would drop down off the path - bursting thru trees and bushes; slipping over fallen limbs and rocks and broken ground. In those "fleeting" moments, as my feet interpreted the ground beneath the high grass, I felt like a wolf on a wild chase with my partner.
I could hear my steppenwolf nature calling.
My Blournal posted: 4-17-04
Revisiting the definition.
When I began my blog in January I wrote, "I have so many unresolved questions like, 'What is it?'. What should this be called? What should it contain? How personal should it be; that is - how much information is 'too much information'?".
I still feel what matters most - is that it meet my needs; finding or even defining a model that enables - not stifles. Still, for the sake of semantical clarity, I would like to properly declare this medium I am investing so much energy into.
My Interpretation
"Blog" is slang for web log. My guess is that the earliest web logs were recordings (logs) of the author's world wide web experiences and explorations - for their personal use or to be shared with others. That "log" might even be described as a "journal" of the author's web explorations.
Diarist.Net
"In short, and in my humble opinion, a traditional weblog is focused outside the author and his or her site. A web journal, conversely, looks inward - the author's thoughts, experiences, and opinions. Some sites, of course, do both."
From an article titled "journal vs. weblog"
BY RYAN KAWAILANI OZAWA
www.diarist.net/guide/blogjournal.shtml
blogger.com
"A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically - like a what's new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly - from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction."
http://help.blogger.com/
Guardian Unlimited
"A weblog is, literally, a log of the web - a sort of frequently updated portal, where new entries go to the top and old ones drift to the bottom. It usually consists of the take of one editor - the weblogger or "blogger" - on the gems he or she has found online, either generally or on a theme."
(from an article by Chris Alden)
www.guardian.co.uk
salon.com/
"A blog, or weblog, is a personal Web site updated frequently with links, commentary and anything else you like. New items go on top and older items flow down the page. Blogs can be political journals and/or personal diaries; they can focus on one narrow subject or range across a universe of topics. The blog form is unique to the Web -- and highly addictive."
http://www.salon.com/blogs
a Favorite Quote
"All of the great leaders
have had one characteristic in common:
it was the willingness to confront unequivocally
the major anxiety of their people in their time.
This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."
John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908),
U.S. economist. The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 12 (1977).
Painting
- The Wayfarer - Hieronymus BOSCH -
Mystery? Mythical? Supernatural? or ... just plain silliness?
( Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam )
"Hieronymous Bosch produced some of the most inventive fantasy paintings that have ever existed. His obsessive and nightmarish vision has its antecedents in the Gothic twilight world of the late Middle Ages ..."
www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bosch.html
"But what forever identifies Bosch' s works as unique is the imagination and complexity of demoniac figures. Daemons in his works are no more grotesque beastly caricatures, but monstrous hybrids of insects, reptiles, chunks of human anatomy and bits of machinery never seen before on any piece of art. By presenting everything real and human contaminated by this devilish brood, Bosch escapes from the traditional Christian belief of afterlife judgement, perhaps to imply that the price of sin is on-earth suffering."
http://cgi.di.uoa.gr/~grad0146/Eenglish/bosch.html
(Best viewed with browser "view" set to "full". You may also be able to use your browser to enlarge this image - to view details.)
a Favorite Film
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/
"The result is a film that absorbs us in a mission before it involves us in an adventure, and that consistently engages the alien with curiosity and logic, instead of simply firing at it. Contrast this movie with a latter-day space opera like "Armageddon," with its average shot a few seconds long and its dialogue reduced to terse statements telegraphing the plot. Much of the credit for "Alien" must go to director Ridley Scott, who had made only one major film before this, the cerebral, elegant "The Duelists" (1977). His next film would be another intelligent, visionary sci-fi epic, "Blade Runner" (1982)." - Roger Ebert
www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/alien.html
Poetry & Prose
"All of a sudden there was a human being, a living human being , to shatter the death that had come down over me like a glass case, and to put out a hand to me, a good and beautiful and warm hand. All of a sudden there were things that concerned me again, which I could think of with joy and eagerness. All of a sudden a door was thrown open through which life came in. Perhaps I could live once more and once more be a human being. My soul that had fallen asleep in the cold and nearly frozen breathed once more, and sleepily spread its weak and tiny wings. . . . A girl had bidden me eat and drink and sleep, and had shown me friendship and had laughed at me and had called me a silly little boy. And this wonderful friend had talked to me of the saints and shown me that even when I had outdone myself in absurdity I was not alone. I was not an incomprehensible and ailing exception. There were people akin to me. I was understood. Should I see her again? Yes, for certain. She could be relied upon. 'A promise is a promise.'"
Steppenwolf
Hermann Hesse
"There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself."
www.gss.ucsb.edu/projects/hesse
Lost
Sleepwalker, I feel my way
through forest and gorge,
Fantastically around me a magic circle glows;
Not caring whether I'm courted or cursed,
I follow truly my inner calling.
How often that reality in which they live
Has wakened me and summoned me to itself!
I stood there disillusioned and frightened
And soon crept away again.
Oh, warm home that they steal me away from,
Oh, dream of love that they trouble in me,
I flee back to you down a thousand
Close paths, as water returns to the sea.
Springs lead me in secret with their melodies,
Dream birds ruffle their brilliant plumage;
My childhood rings forth as if it were new,
In golden strands of light and
the sweet song of bees, There
I find myself sobbing near the mother again.
Hermann Hesse
www.gss.ucsb.edu/projects/hesse
"In the 1960s and 1970s Hesse became a cult figure for young readers. The interest declined in the 1980s. In 1969 the Californian rock group Sparrow changed their name to Steppenwolf after Hesse's classic, and released 'Born to be Wild'."
www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hhesse.htm
"Of the Western philosophers, I have been influenced most by Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche as well as the historian Jacob Burckhardt. But they did not influence me as much as Indian and, later, Chinese philosophy."
- Hermann Hesse
The Official Web Site of The Nobel Foundation
www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1946/hesse-autobio.html
