Brandymore Castle

A child plants a seed in a paper cup -- willful nature spirits leave. -sek, July 2007 Edited from-- A child plants a seed in a paper cup -- willful nature spirits gone. -sek, June 2007

Every time I change something here, it breaks something there. Working on code. -sek, June 2007

The things that you own are as cold as stones --a pebble found upon the beach. -sek, 2007 After a song lyric I have been working on for some time.

I wrote a haiku inspired by a photo by Ray Kinnane that I saw posted to dpreview forums. A simpleton's delight in fireflies flight --every child a true artist. I wanted to express the haughty intellectual's view that enjoying fireflies is like being fascinated by shiny objects and then turn the tables on them. To show if we looked at fireflies they way children do, we would understand the importance of looking, and the origins of true art. And as long as we are human, there is nothing wrong with being human, and that includes our arbitrary, fixed response, unconsidered feelings.

I received Bashō, The Narrow Road to Oku , yesterday (the 19th of May), a poetic and anecdotal chronicle of the celebrated poet's journey in 1689 to the northern end of the island of Honshū. The book itself is beautifully made of high quality materials, typical of a Japanese paperback. I sent for Bashō after enjoying his poetry while studying haiku and having read the jacket cover blurb by illustrator Miyato Masayuki online before ordering. I was captivated by the description of Bashō "drifting with the clouds and streams" and "lodging under trees and on hard rocks," in his long journey to Oku. I felt a sensation of deja vu wash over me as I read the blurb. I looked up to one of my drawings on the wall behind where I sit at my computer, which depicts a poplar leaf caught up in the flow of a stream and about to run aground on a rock. I had seen many a leaf in this predicament, turning and twirling with the current until it snagged upon a rock, in my explorations ...

I dragged my parents to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey for its original theatrical release. I was five years old and in love with the Apollo program. I had seen advertisements on television for the film and insisted I go. We saw the film at the old drive at Bailey's Crossroads right across from the airport (legend has it one pilot scraped his wheels on the screen making a landing) that has been gone for many years. I fell asleep halfway through, what I have always since called the most boring film ever made. I did wake up in time to see Hal get his comeuppance. It was years later before I began to understand the film's subtleties. My parents didn't get any of it. The film represented the epitome of realistic depiction of space and space travel within the solar system. The praise it won for special effects was justified and was in strong contrast to the usual science fiction fare in the cinema. As I grew up, I began in my teenage years to read science fiction. I fell in lov...

On March 11 2007, the audience of the AFI Silver in Silver Spring Maryland was treated to live music from a group of young musicians after the screening of the documentary film on Stephen Wade, Catching the Music . I attended as a member of the Folkstreams team (we had to sprint to the local Office Depot for a ethernet cable or the Folkstreams presentation would never have made it to the silver screen) and we enjoyed the music afterward very much, as did the audience. The musicians Stephen brought with him played wonderfully, each featured on their own and along with Stephen's magical banjo playing. My favorite was Liberty Dawne who sings and plays the fiddle. She has a CD available, which I purchased from her at the show and that you should give a listen to. A favorite of mine is Pass that Burley Down, a standout song of the set and one of two songs written by Liberty from an experience stripping tobacco. It is reminiscent of work songs and field hollers from African American mus...