mark sent me to a site with some rather interesting clips. this one is one of the most impressive displays on a stringed instrument i've ever seen.

but this one, this is so far over top its insane. its a clip made by strapping a dv camera onto the gas tank of suzuki that's a big brother of my 750 (pictured in the montage above), the 1300cc Huyabusa, probably the fastest production made right now. you can see the instrument gauges and the road clearly thru his small windshield.

it starts off by him pulling on to 4 lane highway somewhere and zips up to 70 mph fairly quickly. no big deal, i do that. then the road disappears and you realize he's doing a wheelie. ok, impressive, but i've been passed in my car on the highway before by guys doing wheelies at 90 mph. but this bastard starts his wheelie at 60 then upshifts, and in a flash he's doing over a hundred and bang, he upshifts twice more and now he's at 140 mph, still on his wheelie - my jaw dropped open. he upshifts again and the bike slams back down on both wheels and it takes off like frickin rocket and and at 190 he upshifts yet again and buries the speedometer at 220 (but you can hear the engine keep accelerating) where he lets it hang out for awhile.

unfuckinbelievable. i mean c'mon, the qualifying times at the Indy 500 are low 200's. and this guy's on a freeway! i dig the speed rush as much as the next guy, but this suckers in a league by himself, at least until he grinds himself into a big pile of hamburger someday. amazing the cojones on some people.

posted by bluematrix at 06/28/05 00:53 | link | comments (1)

try to describe happiness. careful, its easy to mistake the description of a state of being for the state itself. you can talk around it, and describe the perspective and actions that go along with a state of happiness, but not happiness itself. happiness and the description of happiness are two very different things.

its not just semantics either. since happiness is a state of being, it exists in the realm of direct experience. it's our personal perception of the emotions and sensations which make up the state of happiness. the word 'happiness' is a label, or a symbol, which we pin on this indescribable state. it is a concept, an experience, not a thing.

we can look at someone and think, 'wow, they look happy.' so we can recognize it. but that still doesn't mean we know what it is. it resembles pleasure, but you can have a pleasurable experience and still not be 'happy'. Pleasure is usually the expression of health, as pain signifies unhealth. excess' of pleasure simply destroys the condition of pleasure. happiness asks for stability that pleasure doesn't give. happiness adopts pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness.

the ancient greeks (once again) contribution to the subject is still among the best even today. aristotle said, 'Happiness is something perfect, for it is sufficient unto itself. It is accessible to all, since there is no man, provided that he is not so banned by Nature as to be incapable of any virtue, who may not obtain it through effort or study."

life is movement, and happiness can only be found in action, in the development of our physical, moral, intellectual or spiritual selves. we have to strive to be happy, it will rarely come to us on a silver platter. so we have to work at it...just like damn near everything else good in life.

we feel it in ourselves and think, 'yep, i'm happy right now.' and this brings to light a typical aspect of happiness that is rather unfortunate - it doesn't last. the french word for happiness 'bonheur' is composed of bon (good) and heur (hour), which is a pretty good estimate of how long a good happy state will last before we start thinking about other things and lose our happy high. yes, some lucky and/or enlightened souls can stretch it out far longer than that, but most of us are stuck with a fleeting happiness at best. bummer.

so why is it that so few people are really happy? its because we haven't been taught to cultivate it and separate from pleasures fleeting moments. we understand that to appreciate a fine book, an intricate piece of music or an excellent wine, a basic understanding is necessary. we need to find teachers who will help us learn happiness like we can learn french. wouldn't that be cool?

posted by bluematrix at 06/23/05 21:39 | link | comments (4)

People have asked me to describe what it was like being at the yearly event called Burning Man where in the middle of the desert during Labor Day week people create the 4th (30,000) largest city in Nevada...

My friend Chris picked me up at the Reno airport and by the time we drove the 4 hours north into the desert it was somewhere around 3am. As i went to unpack my backpack and set up my tent, some of Chris's friends insisted that we all eat some mushrooms. Sure, why not. that first night, there were probably only a few thousand people and many were still building whatever type of creative weirdness they had planned. For the rest of the short night we walked around in the surreal desert landscape (quite similar to the bonneville salt flats a few hundred miles to the south) and talked and marveled at peoples creativity. We oriented ourselves in the dark night by finding the giant neon man that you could see 20 miles away and by the 4 inch wide green yag laser 20 feet above our heads that bisected the entire playa with fat beam that could burn thru a thick book in a few seconds. there were metal trees that burned fire, and trampolines, and huge tesla coils sparking lightning into the sky, and oddly decorated people, and there seemed no end to the mindfucks.

Sometime after daybreak I finally began to get tired and as I worked my way back to my tent (I had lost Chris somewhere after the trampoline adventure with a guy that played a flamethrower like a guitar), i was stopped in my tracks by an artificial leg flying thru the air and landing with a puff of dust near my feet. Apparently this guy was on this 30' tall swing when his leg departed the rest of his body and went sailing out into the morning air towards me. He hobbled over, smiled, nodded, and proceeded to reattach his limb. It just got weirder from there.

I had almost reached my tent went Chris caught up with me and began dragging me to his latest discovery - a sequined pickup was pulling an open flatbed trailer decked out with swag lamps, comfy chairs and Dean Martin blaring from the loudspeakers. We jumped on as it went by, the lamps swinging wildly as it picked up steam, and soon we were trying to balance the martinis in our hand and were being chased by a car that was decorated like a black shark, complete with large moving tailfin, passengers leaning out the windows, needing gin refills at 30mph. I had been there less than 8 hours.

Over the next few days in this 4 mile wide, 40 mile long flat valley surrounded by steep mountains, we continued to explore, eat a little, sleep less, and share stories of the weirdness we saw. but most of all we dropped the facades that modern life imposes on us and we just simply lived. Not too surprising was the fact that one of man’s more civilized inventions, clothes, became less and less evident on people as the week wore on. The sense of separateness caused by ever eroding extended families that most of us living in western 'civilized’ societies feel, was replaced by a sense of belonging. I remember one morning walking along one of the main paths that fanned out from the 5 story tall 'man' at the center of the camp feeling hungry. I smelled something incredible that made my mouth water - blueberry pancakes. I walked over towards the large camper and saw dozens of people gorging themselves silly on huge stacks pancakes that you could barely see under piles of blueberry compote. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to wander over and stand in line as this kind soul cooked for strangers. No money was allowed at burning man, except to buy ice or coffee at a single 24 hour event sponsored stand, and being dressed only in my underwear, I did not have any of the items i had brought (like the t-shirts I had made) to trade for. But the big bear of a man was not interested in my money and soon i was wolfing down the best tasting breakfast I had ever had.

And I felt alive. For one of the first times in my life I felt like I was just another one of Mother Earth’s creatures and not a self-inflated, superior-to-all-other-creatures, homo sapien.

I felt connected. And the people around me were experiencing the same thing and it caused this wonderful sense of community. Reminiscent of a Grateful Dead caravan, but much more real and intense. Each night, after surviving intense desert 115 degree desert heat and a few sandstorms where you could barely see your hand in front of your face, we would dance and celebrate our existence. Fo some reason a wide variety of people with very diverse backgrounds came from all over the world to attend this event... perhaps we all share some adventurous gene that called to us or something. And when we arrived we found a community in the real sense of the world. A community of gentle creative people where no money exchanged hands, no fights broke out, and egos were kept in check. A place where small radio stations and newspapers would tell odd stories or where to find drinks or play world war 2 propaganda in German. A place where creating and playing was the norm.

Combine this unique sense of commonality, mix in the fact that you didn’t have to worry about things like jobs or mortgages, add a pinch of drugs, stir in a lot of intellectually stimulating artwork and hi-tech hijinx, and the stew that is Burning Man really gets cooking. The thousands of individual tastes of this desert stew combined with all the other colorful elements to make one hell of a flavorful feast. And this feast was not just a single serving or even a weekend foodfest - it became a diet that we grew accustomed to.

And then event was over. Cold turkey, no more burning man stew. We said our goodbyes to the mountains and the desert and our friends and we made our way back to our former lives. Burning Man was not a vacation. I did not come back revitalized and ready to take on the world again. It was more like when I returned, I became aware of the fact that I am a superadvanced monkey living in a densely packed, concrete human zoo and that I had escaped for a week to be embraced by Mother Nature and to live in freedom and simple joy like my pre-zoo ancestors had. Of my own free will I had returned to my shiny, comfortable, glass and metal cages...and they looked and felt different now. Everyone I spoke to later went thru the same odd decompression I did. I remember being in the airport on the way home and thought 'how odd, this person behind the food counter is wearing clothes and wants money for this sandwich.'

Vacation: a trip to paradise. Burning Man: a realization of paradise lost.

posted by bluematrix at 06/20/05 14:34 | link | comments (3)

is the muse dead? If "muse" has become synonymous with "inspiration," then almost anything can fit the definition. to me it is much more powerful than that. there's something very compelling about the idea of the muse. critic arlene croce writes 'the love the artist feels becomes spiritual, a dream of Eros, a vision. and they must possess two qualities, beauty and mystery'

she's my heroine, she's my heroin

yes, those visions usually turn messy and chaotic and fleeting. but the imprint they leave in behind endures to inspire again and again. in the solitude of the artists mind, they become larger than life, iconic. a lifeline from the mire of uninspired craft, there is the delicious feeling of temptation, of danger that things could blossom into an addiction, an obsession.

she brings the rain upon this desert land, she breathes life into the desperate man.

as in so many things the ancient greeks marked out the intellectual territory here first...the nine muses of Greek mythology:

Comedy: Thalia, the "Flourishing," is one of the three Graces. Loved by Apollo, she was noted for orgiastic processions and rites. She often carries a comic mask.

Tragedy: Melpomene is the "Songstress." According to some traditions, she bore the half-bird, half-woman Sirens. She is often shown with a tragic mask and sometimes a club and a sword.

Dance: Terpsichore, the "Whirler," is also the muse of choral song. She is often shown dancing and holding a lyre.

Love poetry: Erato, the "Lovely," is often shown playing a lyre.

Lyric poetry: Euterpe, the "Well Pleasing," invented the double flute.

Epic poetry: Calliope, "She of the Beautiful Voice," is foremost of the nine muses. She was loved by Apollo and gave birth to Orpheus. She is often shown holding a writing tablet.

Sacred poetry: Polyhymnia is known as "She of Many Hymns." Legend says she is the mother of Triptolemus, the first priest of Demeter and the inventor of agriculture. She is usually shown in a meditative pose.

History: Clio, the "Proclaimer," is the mother of Hyacinthus, who brought the Phoenician alphabet to Greece. She is often shown holding a scroll.

Astronomy: Urania, the "Heavenly," is the mother of Linus the musician, by Apollo, in some legends. She is often shown holding a globe.

'because i want it now, i want it now. give me your heart and your soul.
I'm not breaking down, I'm breaking out, that's when you lose control' - muse

posted by bluematrix at 06/17/05 03:10 | link | comments (2)

yes, women are different from men. and not just in that awesome smelling, nice curvy, intoxicating physical way.

the human body contains a mechanism that causes the brains of boys and the brains of girls to differ during development. the Y chromosome in males triggers androgens (including testosterone) which have lasting effects not only during fetal development but throughout life. just as estrogens, the female sex hormone, does for women. it makes women more dexterous, more sensitive to sounds and smells, and better at depth perception.

and women are way better at reading facial expressions and body language, and at experiencing basic emotions more intensely (except anger). women have more intimate social relationships, are more concerned about them, and feel more empathy towards their friends, though not toward strangers.

viva la differance! and did i mention they smell way better? and speaking of smells, our least understood sense, our olfactory system is wired completely different from our other senses. sights, sounds, and touches, are arranged by location (this touch came from 'here' that sound is over 'there') when they arrive at the sensory cortex, but smells arrive all mixed together. they are analyzed by the brain in terms of the chemical compounds that make them up, each feature of an odor detected by a different detector in the nose.

smells are easily stored in long term memory and has strong connections to emotional memory. ever smell something and have it stir up an old memory? 2 million people in the US haven't because they have anosmia, or no sense of smell and studies show that this will probably effect their libido. and what kind of smell gets my libido going? freshly washed skin or hair. you can keep the expensive perfumes and colognes - they're a little too much and a little too generic. each person has their own unique smell, a lot of it having to do with your hormones and what you eat. for many animals, your smell tells a lot about who you are physically.

When we smell another's body,
it is that body that we are breathing
in through our mouth and nose,
that we possess instantly,
as it were in its most secret
substance, its own nature.
Once inhaled, the smell is
the fusion of the other's
body and my own. - Jean-Paul Sartre

posted by bluematrix at 06/14/05 14:59 | link | comments (4)

the philosopher denis dutton identified 7 universal traits that art shares across different cultures:

1- expertise or virtuosity. technical artistic skills are admired.
2- nonutilitarian pleasure. people enjoy art for art's sake.
3- style. artistic objects and performances satisfy rules of composition.
4- criticism. people make a point of judging, appreciating and interpreting works of art.
5- imitation. excepting music and abstract painting, artworks simulate real world experiences.
6- special focus. art is set aside from ordinary life and made a dramatic focus of experience.
7- imagination. artists and their audiences entertain hypothetical worlds.

some researchers believe that art (other than narrative) is a pleasure technology, like drugs, erotica, and fine cuisine-a way to purify and concentrate pleasurable stimuli and deliver them to our senses. they view art as a status symbol - as a way of seeing whether our neighbor can afford to spend money on things that have no practical value. this explains why status symbols are usually objects made by specialized labor out of rare materials.

in 'the mating mind', geoffrey miller argues that the impulse to create art is a mating tactic - a way to impress prospective sexual partners with the quality of one's brain (and thus his genes). artistic virtuosity is unevenly distributed, neurally demanding, hard to fake, and widely prized. artists, in other words, are sexy. nature even gives us a precedent, the bowerbirds of australia. the males construct elaborate nests and decorate them with colorful objects. some literally paint their bowers with regurgitated fruit using leaves as a brush. the females appraise the bowers and mate with the creators of the most symmetrical and well ornamented ones.

posted by bluematrix at 06/12/05 20:48 | link | comments (1)

for most of human evolutionary history we lived as hunter-gatherers. the trappings of civilization-sedentary living, cities, division of labor, government, writing-sprang from a recent development, farming, about 10,000 years ago. so for the million or so years before that, the adult males went out and killed things to eat and brought them home to the women, children and old people.

yes, being omnivores, we ate plants too. but the best natural material for building flesh is animal flesh. plants can supply calories and other nutrients, but meat is a complete protein containing all 20 amino acids, and provides energy-rich fat and indispensable fatty acids. across mammal species, carnivores have larger brains for their body size than herbivores-brain tissue is hungry for protein. and men, being larger and unencumbered with small children, most likely did the hunting.

so thousands of generations is a very long time for guys to be wired to explore the savannas with other guys and bring home the bacon. this hard-wiring explains why guys identify ourselves so much with what we do for a living. and it explains our need to be with other guys. it also explains the 'thrill of the chase' experience we crave. for most of us, just having our physical needs met, is not enough. we have to continually 'make a kill' in this modern age to be a man, as in 'make a killing in the stock market', or 'clawing our way to the top' or even just 'conquering a mountain' or 'killing the other guys at football or violent video games'.

we have an inborn need to push ourselves, to explore, to reach, to attain, to drag the carcass (however we might define it to be) home, and to do this in the company of our fellow men. to not do this, to not have that friday night poker game or saturday softball with the guys, to not get together and jam with the boys once a week, or have a beer on sundays with fellow bikers after a good ride, is to go against our genetic makeup. yes, we can, and do, suppress these needs, all the fuckin time, but they come out, one way or another - mildly at first in strange, restless yearnings when everything in life is going fine, then not so mildly later in depression, passive-aggressiveness, and physical illness like heart attacks.

much better to face our true natures and deal with them openly, than to deny them.

(and no, i'm not into real hunting, or eating a whole lot of red meat either, but if done responsibly, i'm not bothered if others care to.)

posted by bluematrix at 06/06/05 23:41 | link | comments (2)

nobel prize winning physicist Max Planck said this as he accepted the award for his study of the atom; "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as the result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together...We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."

'there is no good or bad, there are just higher and lower energy levels. be aware of them. every thought has an energy that will either strengthen or weaken you.

a simple explanation of the 5 levels of energy that we have to work with:

the material world. solid form is energy slowed down so that it's approximately commensurate with your sense perception of the world of boundries. everything that you see and touch is energy slowed down so that it appears to be coalesced mass. your eyes and fingers agree, so there is your physical world.

the sound world. you seldom perceive sound waves with your eyes, but they can actually be felt. these invisible waves are also high/low and fast/slow. this sound level of energy is where you connect to the highest frequencies of spirit through the practice of meditation.

the light world. light moves faster than the material world and faster than sound, yet there are no actual particles to form a substance called light. what you see as red is what your eyes perceive a certain pulsating frequency to be, what you perceive as violet is an even faster frequency. and when light is brought to darkness, darkness becomes light. the implications of this are startling - low energy when faced with high energy experiences an automatic conversion.

the thought world. your thoughts are an extremely high frequency of pulsation that moves beyond the speed of sound and even light. (if you doubt your thoughts are faster than light try this - tonight look at a star in the sky, then move your gaze to another star. your mind just crossed many lightyears of space in a few seconds.) once again, higher frequencies nullifies lower frequencies.

the spirit world. here is the ultimate energy. these frequencies are so rapid that the presence of disorder and disharmony is impossible. these measurable energies are the energies of creation. when you reproduce them in yourself, you reproduce the same creative quality of life that called you into existence.' - w. dyer (hmmm, not sure i buy this last one, but it is an interesting concept.)

posted by bluematrix at 06/03/05 15:16 | link | comments (3)