THE IMAGE

for a few months now, a new love interest and i have been exchanging visits between our respective home towns, 200 miles apart. the photos i got back from a recent rendezvous set me to thinking about my history in photography -- they were taken with a Nikon N90 35mm SLR film camera. that's right, non-digital. my developer is kind enough to offer both traditional prints and negatives, supplemented by a DVD of digitalized images. this enables me to send photos as attachments to emails to my friends, while still practicing the art and science of photography as i first learned it, discovering the delicate balance between lens opening and shutter speed and film speed and ambient conditions and the photographer's creative vision, which are the purest form of film photography.

back in the day (over forty years ago), photos were just snapshots, with a kodak camera and later a polaroid camera. i didn't really begin to learn and understand the process of creative photography until i was in vietnam. there i purchased a 16mm Minolta cartridge film camera half the size of a pack of cigarettes, and carried it everywhere i went. astonishingly, this tiny device had controls for shutter speed and lens opening, and by trial and error i began to learn how manipulating each control affects the light which reaches the film. i'd begun an artistic and photodocumentary journey.

a few years later, living in spectacularly photogenic southern arizona, i progressed to a Pentax Spotmatic 35mm SLR, with a wide angle lens and a zoom telephoto as well. the pentax was still a simple camera, with manual adjustments for shutter speed and lens opening. the sole electronic device was a built-in light meter. my vision broadened, my instincts became more fine-tuned, as this old workhorse taught me even more about light, and shadow, and composition, and depth of field, and motion, and color saturation, and focus. four years spent managing a nature preserve provided a nonstop playground for experimenting with light.

fast forward to the late 90s, the pacific northwest. i decided to upgrade to my current Nikon, with all its attendant bells and whistles -- built in flash, motor drive, autofocus, more features than i've ever used. it cost an arm and a leg, and wouldn't you know it, i made the purchase right before the digital revolution changed photography forever. so here i sit, determined to use and enjoy this older technology until it wears out or they stop making film. digital is great, and someday i'll indulge, but for now, i'm still a film guy.

it's analogous to the faces on watches. i still much prefer the traditional analog clock face with its numerical face and hands, to the somehow impersonal flicking, ticking numbers on digital watches. i don't think i'm a luddite -- there's something i find visually appealing, as well as intuitive, about glancing at an analog watch and picturing what time it is without having to think the numbers to myself, then translate that to something meaningful.

one could make a similar observation about musical instruments -- i also happen to prefer the more organic, genuine sound of an acoustic guitar to the whine of an electric guitar, all other things being equal. or even sound recordings -- there's something primal, historic, about listening to a symphony on an old LP, compared to the admittedly more brilliant digital sound on a CD.

it takes all kinds, i guess.

NAKED LUNCH

here's a game i made up about ten years ago. we all know that a kazillion songs, movies and books have been written about love, with a significant portion having the word "love" in the title. i wondered what would happen if one substituted the word "lunch" for "love". i can't find my list of morphed titles from that time, which ran to several hundred entries. but i'll bet you can come up with several dozen on your own -- if so, please feel free to share them by clicking on the comments link below.

here are a few samples to start the mental wheels spinning:

muskrat lunch
and i lunch you
all you need is lunch
lunch in the afternoon
strange lunch
sea of lunch
lunch with the proper stranger
she lunches you (yeah yeah yeah)
lunch among the ruins
to sir with lunch
lost in lunch
feel the lunch
lunch me tender
in lunch with you
for your lunch
young lunch
all my lunch

you get the idea. have fun!

WOUNDED KNEE

today marks the 35th anniversary of the surrender of militant american indians who had held the south dakota hamlet of wounded knee for 10 weeks. wounded knee lies within the pine ridge indian reservation, and the militants were mostly oglala sioux, led by members of AIM, the american indian movement. their occupation was in protest against decades of abuse and neglect by the feds and by the puppet tribal government led by dick wilson and his good squad. armed with a few rifles and a reverence for traditional tribal values, the small group of occupiers were surrounded by an army of FBI, u.s. marshalls, white ranchers, and wilson's goons, equipped with armored personnel carriers, helicopters, assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and other tools of the vietnam war. for more on this incident, which closely resembles similar attacks by whites on indians in the 1800s, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Incident .

wounded knee was the site of the massacre of the same name in 1890: http://en.wikipedia.org:80/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

in 1973 i was living in tucson, arizona. i vividly remember seeing a poster in the window of a head shop on south 4th avenue, proclaiming the situation at wounded knee and calling for assistance nationwide. i came so close to going, and now wish i had.

THE INVITATION

it happens that for the past year, i've been searching for a new relationship in my life, several years after the last one ended. being adaptable, i've explored a number of connections with potential partners through online services like match.com and eharmony. most profiles are eliminated immediately for one reason or another. a few develop to the email and phone call stage. even fewer filter down to actually meeting, then meeting again. of those, two women have become good and caring friends, and another has great potential as a life partner (be still, my heart).

during the process, there've been a few comedies of error, and a few catastrophes. i've learned much, about others and about myself.

through it all, one of my guideposts for understanding and evaluating each new person has been a favorite poem, written by a woman named oriah mountain dreamer. the poem is called The Invitation -- you can savor it for yourself by clicking on this link -- http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/ . she has a wonderful vision on relationships, one that i return to when i need nourishment or the reminder of what's essential in this life. enjoy.

STARS IN MY EYES

NASA maintains a number of useful and fascinating websites. my favorite is their astronomy picture of the day, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ . the image for today, 6 may 2008, is especially breathtaking -- two galaxies colliding, a swirling mass of chaotic beauty.

please note that to view a particular day's image, you must click on the "calendar" link at the bottom of the webpage, then navigate to the date in question. or, it's fun just to cycle back randomly to previous images, using either the "calendar" or the "archive" link.

many of the images are taken from the hubble space telescope, from orbiting shuttles and stations, as well as from ground telescopes. there are also stunning images of terrestrial weather. if you send the above link to your computer's desktop, you can check each new day's image as part of your routine, for a daily dose of awe and wonder. check it out.

EIGHT BELLES

the tragic death of the filly Eight Belles at the end of saturday's kentucky derby was shocking to all who witnessed it (i, thankfully, did not). after running the entire race on churchill downs' famous dirt track -- hard and fast that day -- and coming in second place, the filly was loping around the first turn to slow down and cool down, and both her front ankles snapped. she had to be euthanized on the spot, before the horrified crowd and a world tv audience.

the event will, i hope, serve to bring into question all events in which animals are the subject or the vehicle for human "sport". in the case of thoroughbred horse racing, it is my understanding that there has occurred so much inbreeding over the years, in the pursuit of speed, that such injuries become more and more inevitable. at what cost, both to the horses and to our own integrity?

greyhound racing? similar story.

professional rodeo? don't even get me started. i grew up in rodeo country, and have vivid memories of one particular whoop-up rodeo (whoop-up being my home town's annual celebration of the trail by the same name, used by booze smugglers from canada into the u.s. during prohibition) -- a bronc was released from the chute, somehow landed awkwardly and shattered a rear leg joint. the poor creature leaped and hobbled and literally screamed (a sound i shall never forget) around the arena. the only thing holding its lower hind leg to its body was a shred of hide. that near-severed limb spun and looped crazily as the horse fled in panic to escape the pain. even after riders were able to rope it and tie it down, it took a full half hour before the owners could be reached for permission to put the horse out of its misery with a gunshot to the head.

freak occurrance? well, imagine yourself to be a calf, prodded out of a chute and running terrified from the pursuing horse and rider. suddenly a rope settles around you neck, and you are jerked into the air from full forward flight to come crashing to the ground, choking. the rider then hastily binds three of your four thrashing legs and raises both arms when finished, signalling the stopwatches to stop, recording his time. good clean fun, right? someday i'd like to see a cowboy sent racing across the arena, only to be ridden down and roped in similar fashion. i think his attitude that the whole procedure is painless might change.

rodeo is sacrosanct in much of the american west, as is bullfighting in spain and mexico. they remain in my mind bastions of barbarity and torture, right alongside dog fighting, cock fighting, fox hunting, and canned big game hunts. this is not sport, this is savagery.

Eight Belles is mercifully no longer with us. i hope that her death will spark a universal debate over our assumptions on the humane treatment of animals. but i'm not holding my breath.

A NON-POPULIST RANT

this burns my socks. just about year-round in missoula, and certainly during the warmer months (all four of them), pedestrians and bicyclists, often accompanied by their baby strollers and unleashed dogs, ply the streets of the city. missoula prides itself as being friendly to alternative, non-fuel-consumptive transport, which is fine. but the majority of said amblers and peddlers abuse the privilege.

i'm a professional driver, during this particular incarnation of my long and sordid life. i'm on the road 4-9 hours a day, and i see all the venal sins that you pompous, self-righteous walkers and bikers commit. you have developed a sense of entitlement, not to mention righteousness, that makes me homicidal. not for you the rules of the road, oh no. if the sign says "don't walk", you walk anyway, in crowds, and vehicle traffic backs up, idling engines adding to air pollution. many of you can't even be bothered by walking (good for your health, i hear) to the nearest crosswalk. you amble with blinders on, not checking for traffic, right across the street in midblock. screeching tires and warning horns seem to make you more determined to claim the public thoroughfare as yours, and yours alone.

bikers. sweet mother of god, don't you realize that you are subject to the same traffic rules as cars are? you ride on the roadway or the sidewalk, with or against traffic, ignoring stop signs and stop lights, swooshing your daring way through one potentially lethal confrontation after another. lethal to you, by the way, not the poor unfortunate sod off whose hood you may happen to ricochet. it's all about speed and style with you, and the devil take the hindmost.

pedestrians and bicyclists of missoula, your behavior is disgraceful, dangerous, and despicable. you wouldn't survive for two minutes in houston or philadelphia or boston without turning into road pizza. get over your egotistical selves, realize that you share the road with the very motor vehicles for whom those roads were built (using fuel tax dollars). stop, look and listen before crossing.

or, keep it up, and you may find yourself in the path of a moving vehicle whose driver has no intention of slowing down for you. not me, mind you. i'm a professional, even on my days off. still, the temptation is there ...

THE IRISH CENTURY

one of my favorite writers, morgan llywelyn, has written the fifth and final installment in her series of novels on the irish people's struggle for independence through the tumultuous course of the twentieth century. the ongoing story is told through the lives of generations of one family, beginning with the events leading up to the Easter Rebellion in 1916, followed by the Civil War in 1921, the founding of the Irish Republic in 1949, and the horrors of Bloody Sunday in 1972. (each of the stated years is the actual title of a novel in the series.) 1999 continues the chain of events to the disarmament talks and beginnings of reconciliation among the irish at the end of the twentieth century, as ireland has joined europe and prospered.

llywelyn's story telling is magical -- whether rooted in modern times, or in irish myth and ancient history (see Brian Boru, Finn Mac Cool, Grania, Lion of Ireland, The Red Branch, etc.). her characters are both recognizable and larger than life, flawed and heroic. her characters' voices and speech are a fresh sea breeze of celtic lilt and lore. she is, in short, a national treasure.

up the british!

LAPEL PINS

much has been made in recent days over whether wearing an american flag lapel pin equates with patriotism -- and by extension, whether those who do not wear them, in particular those running for office, may be somehow deficient in feelings for mother country.

i don't happen to be among those whose constricted lives need a constant reminder of which country i live in, any more than i need the annoying insistent thump of drums in a song to remind me of my heartbeat. there are no flags on my clothing, my vehicle, or flying from a pole in my yard. the symbol is not the reality. why is that such a confusing issue? you can burn a thousand american flags, yet the republic endures. you can engage in healthy, vigorous debate over a particular administration's policies, yet the ship of state sails on (probably stronger for having been questioned).

it seems to me that it is incumbent upon each of us to experience as much of the world's diversity as we possibly can during our lives -- and having done so, we will be confident in our own identities as well as respectful toward the identities of others. at this point in our evolution as a species, there is simply not room for all this drama, antagonism, avarice and insecurity. on all sides. there are more important issues at stake, like saving what remains of the garden planet that our grandchildren will inherit.

besides, how many of those flag pins have "made in china" inscribed on the back?

RACISM

i grew up in a small farming community on the northern montana prairie, a town that was, and remains, just about completely lily-white. i remember only one black classmate in high school, and a few indians. i was friendly toward them, but did not become true friends. even white hutterites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterites , religious kin to mennonites and the amish, were regarded with suspicion, stereotyped as alien, odd, thievish. they still are seen that way, sad to say.

after i left home, i spent two fairly directionless years in college before dropping out to join the military. it was there that i was thrown into a truly mixed-race setting, from day one. i'm proud to say that i quickly formed friendships with everyone, easily sloughing off my upbringing. once during basic training, i helped defuse a near-riot between black and latino soldiers in my platoon. both sides were facing each other across the squad bay, confrontation and violence crackling in the air. like an idiot (in retrospect), i deliberately walked slowly into the space between them, and sat cross-legged on the floor, asking questions and encouraging them to talk out their beef. somehow it worked, against all odds.

throughout my nearly two years in the army, at radio and radioteletype schools in arizona and georgia, and especially in vietnam, i continued to reach out to blacks and latinos (as well as whites) for friendship, looking for shared understanding. it was a new and rich world to me, this cultural mix, and i wanted to learn as much as i could.

i've never stopped in all the years since. to this day i have latino and black and asian friends around the country. those who say "i'm colorblind, i only see the person" are naive. a person's racial heritage is part of how they grew up, how others treated them, who they've become. but that doesn't mean that skin color has to be the first thing you see, when you get to know someone from a different background. for me, it is a freeing experience to look someone in the eye and think "my friend jabari" or "my friend irene", not "black guy" or "latina woman".

but even with all that liberation, i think that there is no such thing as a white person who is completely free of the effects of racism, any more than is true for people of color. it takes constant, 24/7 awareness and caring to outgrow all that crap, and it is a lifelong process. i feel sorry for those who don't even try. they are missing out on diversity that can only enrich their own lives. i cringe whenever i hear racial epithets, and don't tolerate being around those who use them. if i think the situation calls for it, i'll readily stand up to confront the ignorance. but some battles just aren't worth the trouble.

you doubt that racism is alive and well in america today? two articles in this morning's NYTimes might give you pause for thought. the first article, "american exception" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/23prison.html?ex=1209614400&en=26caf0c15ae6f5a3&ei=5070&emc=eta1 is about the inmate count in u.s. prisons, compared to other countries in the world. we have 5 percent of the world's population, and almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. think about that. and while you're at it, consider that the majority of our prisoners are black, latino, native american. a staggering 25 percent of black males are in jail or prison as i write this. no racism? spare me.

the second article, "the accidental rebel" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/opinion/23auster.html?ex=1209614400&en=68c1d55cebf9d760&ei=5070&emc=eta1 doesn't focus on racism itself, but talks about events in the seminal year of 1968 (the year i was in vietnam) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968 . it was during the height of the civil rights movement and the birth of the women's movement (second wave). it was the year of the assassination of dr. martin luther king, jr. and bobby kennedy, the year of race riots and ghettos burning. the article's author is 61, as i am. and like me, he fell into relative enlightenment by happenstance rather than design.

from my perspective, the take-home message of both pieces is that not much has changed. one sees less blatent racism than was true back then, but it's still there, just more subtle. i can spot a racist remark a mile away, whether it's about rap music, or recounting a personal memory that (on the surface) is unrelated to race, until you start to question linguistic assumptions.

how many black senators, congressmen, major CEOs to we have? are they in the same proportion as the percentage of blacks in our population? no? i wonder why not? and don't trot out that tired old song and dance about blacks (or indians, or latinos, or substitute your own ethnic group of choice) being lazy, or angry, or feeling entitled to unfair advantage. it is precisely unfair DISadvantage that minorities are struggling to overcome. if we whites have to give a little for that to happen, then it long past time we did so.

personally, i will welcome a world where i can work with, work for, be friends with folks from a rich and colorful array of cultures. that's where the most interesting realities often flourish -- in music, in literature, in life experience. (it is no accident, for instance, that most american music during the 20th century had its roots in black culture -- jazz, rock, hip hop. there's always resistance at first among the old guard, but even most of them start to catch the beat over time.)

so to all you overt and closet racists out there, get over yourselves and join the human race. john lennon said it best:

well you may say i'm a dreamer
but i'm not the only one
i hope someday you'll join us
and the world will live as one.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE ON? YOUR MIND?

when in doubt, expect the unexpected. and always be in doubt.

FLAMING CURSOR

i've been so busy at the computer that my cursor caught fire. check it out.
http://www.flamingcursor.com/

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?

it is a source of never-ending sorrow for me, when i think back to the astonishing numbers and diversity among animals, plants and ecosystems that thrived when i was growing up half a century ago. vast herds of zebras, wildebeasts, elephants on the african savannah, tigers still extant in south asia, whales in the ocean (which had not yet become a public sewer), howler monkeys and black panthers and caimans in central and south america ... the list goes on and on. yes, human encroachment had already begun, and yes, trophy "hunters" and poachers had started to make inroads into the populations of larger target species. still, there was wilderness, and there was wildlife.

today a species goes extinct every day, an entire ecosystem is lost every week. the human species is a cancer on the planet. our globe could reasonably sustain a maximum of one-tenth the present number of humans, and still have space for the rest of our fellow creatures. one-tenth. that is my own estimate, based on years of thought and a degree in ecology & evolutionary biology. if you want evidence, simply look back in history to when the world population was 600 million, rather than 6 billion. resources were plentiful, there was still danger and adventure in the wild places of this world, and most indigenous peoples knew how to coexist with nature, realizing that practically and morally, we are a part of the whole, not masters of our surroundings. it is the master mentality that has led us to this sorry pass.

none of this is news. it was common knowledge when i was in school, 25 years ago, as were the spectres of global warming, the greenhouse effect, habitat degradation and destruction, and species extinctions on a massive scale. we have entered the homeozoic era (the homeotoxic era?). the planet will survive, though much changed, even if we do not. a few among us, too few, speak out, but it's already too late. my grandchild and his children will witness abominations in the name of continued "progress" that could only exist in my nightmares. all the while we, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, are the worst perpetrators, while other nations are already pursuing more enlightened policies, supporting more comprehensive education and research, talking about the problem and brainstorming solutions.

where, among the presidential debates, are the questions about the environment, about endangered species, about environmental policy reform? i mean, this is only the most important issue of our time, or any other. this is the only planet we have. we inherited a garden, and are turning it into a cesspool. small steps by individuals do help, but not enough. we need a paradigm shift on a global scale.

a footnote: if you read no other book this year, please read fred pearce's With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change. if your eyes do not pop open and your hair does not stand up on end, you have no heartbeat.

SLIPPERY SEASONS

april 19th, and it snowed today in missoula. i wonder whether global warming, global dimming, el nino, la nina, or politicians' hot air is responsible? i feel like i'm in the poppy field in the Wizard of Oz. "unusual weather we're having, ain't it?" only, not so unusual for montana.

by contrast, as i write this, after 8 pm, it is 80 degrees F in tucson, where i lived for twenty years. see the UA webcam: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/camera/ definitely it's spring in south carolina, tennessee, pennsylvania, texas, georgia, washington, among the many places i've lived. (in my adult life i've moved well over thirty times.) of my residential states, the only other one where it's still cool is alaska.

what does a 500 lb. canary say as it walks down a dark alley?

(deep gravelly voice) "here, kitty, kitty."

DEVIL CATS

i have two cats, brother and sister, part siamese. the male, chiaro, is white with a black tail, black warpaint streaking up one eye, and a few black spots the size of a silver dollar on his body. the female, mao, is variegated like a margay with calico colors. though littermates, chiaro outweighs mao by two lb., yet when they wrestle she is fearless, pouncing and chasing him as much as he does her.

they become wildly playful after their evening meal -- careening around the apartment like a couple of tornados. thankfully, since i raised them from kittens, they respond well to a word from me, especially a word containing, shall we say, emphasis. it pains me that they must be indoor cats, but where i live there is too much danger from traffic. besides, studies have shown that indoor cats live much longer, healthier lives than those allowed outdoors. the flip side is, i've had outdoor cats in the past, and their essential felinity seemed to be more fully expressed by being able to laze in the sun, climb trees, and hunt. 'course, they also were exposed to fleas, ticks, skunks, snakes, and predation by raptors and wild canines. being a selfish sort, i've come to prefer that my animal friends be in my life for as long as possible, as healthily as possible. they seem to find ways to sublimate their wild urges, cats being much more creative and intelligent and self-sufficient than mere dogs.

whoa, did he really say that? yup, he did, and didn't blink an eyelash in the telling. cats rule, dogs drool.

HYPOCRISY

there's a video on youtube that shows how completely hillary clinton has become a full-fledged member of the good ol' boys club in washington. i really want a woman in the white house. just not her. nancy pelosi in 2016? for now, obama is the clear choice. check out the video -- http://www.thenation.com:80/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=311245 .

THE SKY ABOVE US

this is too stunning not to share. each day i check one of NASA's websites for their astronomy picture of the day. today's image featured a nighttime shot of lenticular clouds shrouding the san francisco peaks north of flagstaff, arizona, with an unimaginably rich and detailed milky way as backdrop. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ (to find this particular image, click on "calendar" at the page bottom, then on today's date, april 16, 2008.)

when i grew up in north central montana in the 50s and 60s, such skies were the norm. there was no such thing as light pollution back then, at least not out on the prairie. i have vivid memories of looking up and seeing tens of thousands of stars, both clustered in the milky way and scattered across the rest of the sky. not to mention the northern lights!

this website includes images from space, as well as those taken on earth. i encourage everyone to send the URL to your desktop, and check each new day's image for a moment of beauty and inspiration. you can browse as far back as june 1995.

NASA maintains a number of excellent websites, including satellite tracking http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/ , solar images http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/ , and many others found on their home page http://www.nasa.gov/ . in my never-to-be-humble opinion, NASA has done wonders with their meager budget, which ought to be a hundred times its current allocation. as should be the budgets for NEA, the national endowment for the arts, public radio and television, education and health care. and yes, i'm a stark raving liberal, and proud of it. it's past time that we drag ourselves out of the primordial ooze of conservative nonthink, and join other developed nations in the 21st century.

DIVERSITY

when i was growing up in a small montana prairie town, my two favorite places to visit were the movie theater and the public library. at both, one could simply open one's eyes and feast on exotic places, people, times. windows onto the world. these places seemed to be imbued with a special kind of magic, able to transport me to places i'd only imagined -- and some i'd never suspected existed.

my family didn't own a tv until i was about 10. so i was no stranger to entertaining myself by the frequent and elaborate application of imagination -- creating games, reading books from an early age, and being entertained by the golden age of radio. television was something of a revelation, even if only in black and white, but it couldn't hold a candle to the big screen of a movie theater. and in many ways, neither could measure up to the incomparable pleasure of curling up with a good book. i've read literally thousands of books during my sixty-odd years on this planet. it would be impossible to distill them down to my favorite ten, or even a hundred. similarly, on a somewhat smaller scale, with movies.

someday, when i strike the lottery or write the great american novel (though i believe mark twain and herman melville already have some claim to that laurel), among my pet projects will be an endowment to my home town's library, to the movie theater, and scholarships to high school graduates whose college majors will be in music or biology or art or math or astronomy or .... see? too many valid and valuable fields to narrow it down. anything but political science, economics or theology. the world already has too many of those, to little good effect.

yup, i'm prejudiced. but hey, it's my fantasy, so i'm allowed.

WE DO NOT TAKE TRIPS SO MUCH AS THEY TAKE US

everyone is on the road, it seems. someone from bozeman just returned from seattle, someone from missoula is still in new york city, someone from menominee is headed for who-knows-where. travel. we all say we love it, and i guess we do. for me, it depends on the ride. air? horseback? rail? motorcycle? kayak? you bet. bus or car? hmm. it also depends a lot on the company.

journeys of the heart, journeys of the mind, journeys across geography. they call out to us, entice us with promises of exotic change or even riches, as with edgar allen poe's mythic knight in Eldorado -- http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/7828/ . we seek romance, new landscapes, any number of things which are somehow missing from our lives.

i've heard it said that there is no destination, there is only the journey. we may find romance, new landscapes, illumination as we travel. if so, golden. so much depends on mindset. i'm reminded of an earlier entry in which i noted how my son and a dear friend independently brought to my attention how readily i habitually fall into a narrow focus when i travel, failing to open myself up to the beauty i'm passing through. i'm persuaded that destination and journey are important. balance.

balance.

THE WARRIOR-POET OF FILM

in today's NYTimes, there was a comprehensive update on the health and activities of film critic legend roger ebert http://www.nytimes.com:80/2008/04/13/movies/13scot.html?th&emc=th . nearly two years ago, cancer of the salivary gland left roger unable to speak, and now, 41 years after the birth of "sneak previews" on PBS with his co-critic gene siskel (who died in 1999), a show which later metamorphosed into "at the movies" on ABC, roger has announced that he is leaving his broadcast critic's seat, and will devote his considerable intellect, wit and monumental knowledge of film history to the print media, the chicago sun-times http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/ , leaving the television critic balcony chairs to be filled by richard roeper and michael phillips (a more amiable team, but i'll miss the fireworks that gene and roger so often set off when debating the merits of a movie, even when they agreed whether it was worth seeing.) it is the passing of an era, but thankfully not the passing of roger ebert from the world of cinema. i for one will continue to seek out his thoughts, opinions and ideas online. they matter. ebert is an artistic original.