Mocca Gallery

When I was a kid I decorated one entire wall of my bedroom with one huge map. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I found all the topographical U.S. geological survey maps of the local area, with our house in the very center. It was beautiful. Interesting colorful patterns when viewed at a distance, and fascinating detail up close. I was always finding some curious spot on the map that would prompt an adventure to see that place in person.

I’ve often toyed with the idea of doing that again, with a wall in my home office, or maybe in tile on the floor. Rather than take on an entire wall, I thought it best to do a 16×20 section first. Something I could frame, if it turned out well.

Recently I was looking at a detailed New York City map on Google. It was amazing, their graphical representations of the buildings is fantastic. This is perfect I thought. Plus, I could add collage elements of our recent visit, like theater tickets, and place them on the map right over the actual theater. Very cool. I also created a additional layer for the subway lines. These bright colored lines seem to hold the entire thing together.

Click here to see the full image. Can you imagine an entire wall done like this? I think it would be beautiful. I think if we ever moved to New York, I would have to do it.

When we went to New York
It was obvious we didn’t know anything
It was all new and so ‘first time’
We explored and had adventures
It was exciting, and inspiring

When we got back to Vegas a friend said
“Now you should tourist on Vegas with that same spirit”
I thought that was a great idea
Take a fresh look around
Like a tourist, like an immigrant, like a young person
I found a “happenings” type of magazine
I saw that the Mirage has topless swimming pools
When the hell did that happen?
And how many other things are going on that I don’t know about?
Answer – I don’t know
But probably a lot

So, I’m looking around now
And I see that this is a very good age to be alive in
And Las Vegas is a very good city to be young in
Or have young eyes in

I recently picked up a free magazine named 944 outside a small neighborhood restaurant in Las Vegas. The magazine is for and about people in new city centers like Phoenix and Las Vegas. It was a real eye opener.

The magazine was beautiful, very high quality, glossy and thick, similar to Vogue or Vanity Fair. Like New York fashion magazines, there were articles about the arts, celebrities and current affairs. But there were interesting differences in the advertising. Instead of ads for ‘things’ like a fashion designer’s latest wears – the ads focused on ‘lifestyle’, a youthful contemporary urban lifestyle. There were ads for nightclubs, restaurants, art galleries and inner-city condominium loft spaces. The copy I saw was published for Las Vegas, and the ads were mostly about the city’s nightlife industry.

I normally don’t care for fashion magazine advertisements, although I do admire their artistry. But I love these new ads, they have a gritty, hedonistic sensibility. What’s not to like?

We hold these truths to be self-evident
That all men are created equal

As long as they have the proper lineage
And were born in the right kennel
And their papers are in order

I’d love to tear down the walls
But what would happen to the value of my property?
How would it affect the economy?
Who would pick the cotton?

Here is an interesting analogy to consider. Viruses are a lot like thoughts.

A virus is a tiny bit of material. It is not alive. It can not reproduce. But when a virus enters a suitable living host cell – the normal functioning of the cell will produce copies of the virus.

Thoughts are tiny patterns of information (probably non-physical). They are not alive and they can not reproduce. But when they infect a living mind – that mind will make copies of the thought.

Thoughts, like viruses, can alter the normal functioning of the host, sometimes with detrimental, even fatal consequences. Repetitive thoughts of resentment or fears can be like that. Racism is a particularly bad virus.
 
Thoughts, like viruses, can be spread from one infected host to an unlimited number of non-infected potential hosts. The mechanism is the same. The infected host makes copies of the initial virus then disseminates the new copies. In the case of thoughts, this is done by speech or via the written word. My thoughts are infecting your mind right now.

The fact that host are living has an interesting consequence – the structure of the virus will mutate. Both viruses and thoughts evolve as they move from host to host.

I don’t know what all this means. But I think the analogy is so elegant that something profound is implied by it. I just don’t know what it is.

Signal-to-noise-ratios compare the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. Choice is implied. Some information (like a radio station) is labeled as signal and other information (like other stations) is labeled as noise.

When a baby is born, I suspect his experience is undifferentiated. All signal. Pure non-duality. All that is – is one. An amazing experience, but not great for physical survival.

So, the child learns to differentiate. That is Mother. This is my hand. That is food. This is not. He learns to focus. By adulthood his ability to focus on desired signals is automatic and constant. And it extends to non-physical things like good and bad, right and wrong.

But we forget that the act of focusing on one thing is really just the act of filtering out everything else. What we don’t focus on becomes invisible. And it has become so automatic that we don’t realize we’re doing it. By now the choices about what is signal and what is noise is made at the subconscious level.

Since I’ve become aware of this, I’ve been trying to turn up my noise levels in an attempt to let more information in. I’ve discovered that trying to understand everything is a big hurdle. If I open my eyes and my mind and don’t think too much, don’t try to label or categorize things, I see more. Sometimes understanding comes later, sometimes it doesn’t. Also, being at peace with paradoxes and allowing them to be, is essential.

As an interesting aside – sometimes a person’s belief in his self-created reality is so fixed, he needs help getting past it. Native American Indians found ceremonies involving peyote helpful in this regard. Peyote helps increase one’s awareness of perceptions, sensations, and inner mental activity. Consciousness expands to include all these responses simultaneously. I like to classify peyote as a de-hallucinogen because it removes the hallucinations of everyday life and exposes the reality hidden beneath it.

I’ve been watching an interesting television series about art in the 21st century called Art:21. It is a series of segments on individual artists. Each discuses their works, their interests and processes. They were on 3 DVDs. We got them all on NetFlix and watched them back to back to back. About 40 different artists were highlighted.

What I found so interesting was the different ways they perceived the world. Some were more visual than others and their art was all about imagery. Some were more verbal. Some were interested in space and used objects to shape or define space. Some were not interested in objects but in the relationships between them. Some were into ideas and used art to express them. Some were interested in time or change or contrast and tended to produce work in a series of related pieces. Each was exploring their own unique way of perceiving reality and each was compelled to express what they saw.

Normally all you get to see it the art itself, the end product. But on this show we got to see the creators of the work and hear their ideas and see their point of view. It occurred to me that being exposed to a variety of approaches to the perception of reality was of great value.

I began to think about how I perceive reality. It seems to me that I understand the world through the use of analogies. When I encounter something new, if I can relate it to something I already know about in the form of an analogy, then I feel I know something about the new thing too. It is my main mental tool.

But my favorite thing to do is to think up new analogies, discover some new similarity between disparate things, thereby gaining a better understanding of them both. When this happens my mind tingles. It is very exciting. I guess this is why I’m always on the search for new and interesting ideas and points of views.

I had a semantic insight the other day. It makes more sense to think of scientific theories as analogies, rather than as scientific laws or truths.

For example, Newton’s theories about gravity are not true. There is no case where they are true. His theories are analogies expressed in a language called mathematics that says gravity behaves ‘like’ this. He never says gravity ‘is’ this. That’s not to imply his analogies are not useful. They predict the behavior of gravity so closely that you can fly a spaceship to the moon and back again based on them. Pretty powerful analogies indeed.

But, like all analogies, they are more relevant to some aspects of reality than to others. When contemplating the very large, like galaxies and black holes, they are less useful.

To the rescue comes Einstein with new theories. His theories provide deeper insight into the nature of space and time. But they are not true either. They are especially inaccurate when describing the very small. But his analogies were powerful enough to imply the viability of the building of the atomic bomb.

People are working on new analogies all the time. Quantum physics is particularly popular at the moment precisely because accurate analogies describing the very small are in short supply.

There are scientific theories about phenomenon, and then there is phenomenon itself. Which is – all that is. A theory can never encapsulate all that is. Theories are encapsulated by – all that is.

It may seem that I’m splitting hairs here. But remembering that scientific theories are just helpful analogies keeps us from falling into the trap of believing that they are the truth. The moment you believe it is the truth – science becomes just another religion.

I saw an interview on television with a woman who wanted to learn how to walk on a tight rope. She had a training wire installed in her apartment. The wire was one foot high and was six feet long. She practiced an hour or two every day, and after a week she could walk on it without falling off.

She thought she was going to learn how to control her balance. But, she soon discovered that the real secret was learning to be comfortable with imbalance. She found her desire for control was causing her to over adjust, and it was her over adjusting that caused her falls.

I think her insights into tight rope walking make an interesting analogy for one way of looking at the world.

Had a good weekend.
Went to a wedding of a Deb relation.
At the ‘Little Chapel of the West’ on the South Strip.
There were no Elvi present, so I’m not sure it was legally binding.

On the way there we passed the Luxor.
I realized I had not used the word ‘obelisque’ in a sentence in many years.
Decided to rectify this by saying ‘obelisque’ whenever I deemed it necessary.
Which is more often than one might suspect.
Deb tells me – I got y’er obelisque right here. (complete with obscene gesture)

Deb family members gathered.
It was like being on the set of a David Lynch movie.
Next month we visit my family in North Carolina for a graduation.
My family gatherings are more Fellini-esque.

I use to dread these.
Now I know all families are eccentric.
Or to be more precise, the concept of normal is the real fantasy.
Does that mean I’m eccentric too? Naw. Impossible.
I am the measure of all things.
   
Imagine an avant-garde artist doing a performance piece.
His new work will be named ‘wedding’ or ‘graduation’.
All I have to do is be present and enjoy it.
The tickets are free.
It will be filmed for prosperity.
I have no speaking lines.
I’m working for scale.
These things are only weird if you take them seriously.

So, I have written software for no users.
Now I see there is true genius in this.
Users, by definition, are the source of all bugs.

If a bugs falls in the forest.
And no user is there to hear it.
Does it make a sound?
Now the answer becomes obvious – NO.
After many centuries this perplexing philosophical question has finally been answered.
Simply by rephrasing it in software terms.
The future is very bright.
So very bright for all of us.