so many words uttered in the silence of a stride now
rather than on paper
let fly inside a glance
a whispered stranger wrapped in studied pauses
gaps inbetween these motions
stop times in jazz like life or
breath or remembering to just be and
let this locality flow around me
and through me until its flow and mine are inextricably bound,
a consciousness conjoined by celebratory simplicity

a woodsman and his axe
when tools become extensions of the hands
when blood flows through my pen
joy through my eyes and touch

meditation and purpose unite in a work that is not work
when images become words and words become images
and everyday becomes art
cast out on the canvas of my very being
in a breath, in a silence, in a pause, in a stride
before the axe cleaves the wood in twain
before pen or brush or blood spills out on paper
a purpose so pure it binds these silences together in a sound louder than any shout
echoing down the passages of time to ears
who hear that resounding purpose centuries later and pause
and find comfort in its peaceful scream

knowing at least that someone tried
when it mattered most
that someone never set the axe or pen or brush aside
no matter how fierce the wind and cold
that someone listened to those same dreadful silences,
paused,
and then went to work anyway
to create for creations sake alone
art which becomes itself
purpose which exists inside the studied pause
jazz that lingers long after the listener has left
leaving its mark on the hollow walls of time.

Curmudgeon in the Wild: No Problemo! Delusions Run Deep in the Easy-Motoring Economy - by James Kuntsler

"If the Devil himself wanted to design a perfect trap for attracting morons, he couldn't have done better than this season's New York International Auto Show at the Jacob Javits Center."

"...it is interesting to actually pay attention, because they uniformly send a bizarre message: You are all alone in your car in a beautiful environment."

"the global oil peak problem (2006) will change everything about how and where we live, how we allocate and value land, what our economy will be about in the decades ahead, and especially how our social and political relations will sort out. Above all, apropos of the subject at hand, it will lead to a severely diminished presence of cars in our daily lives."

"A character of particular interest was one Peter Hull of Kettering, Northampshire, England, a traffic engineer who travels frequently to the U.S. on business, and is a lover of SUVs. Hull himself commutes 140 miles a day by car from his home to London on British freeways -- which is extraordinary for a European. He said it costs him the equivalent of a thousand dollars a month for gas."

great article by the author of The Long Emergency, available now at local bookstores.