dancingpebbles

Still working on the new look.

Slow, but we’re getting there.

Happy Birthday, JIM!

After a hectic week I settled down in front of the computer for some fun stuff. H kept the camera with him and hasn’t returned from Basel yet, so instead of snapping photos all over the place, I found myself digging through Flicker:Technique discussions looking for something new to try. What I came up with is the “fake lomo” technique. Had lots of fun with it. Here’s the best result so far, created by following the instructions with a little extra tweaking of values here and there, and adding a texture layers also:

And I also liked this:

H and I spent most of the last week in Frankfurt. I had a conference and he stopped over for a day on his way to Basel. On the free day, besides sleeping late for the first time in ages, we spent part of the afternoon at the Stadel Museum. Nice art collections, although we were disappointed that the Vermeers were on loan for an exhibition. I rediscovered August Macke. Such beautiful composition and color.

Another objective of the museum-hop: Had just read Iain Pears’ “Dream of Scipio” and so I ran straight to the 14th century stuff in order to immerse myself in what Pisano’s innovations must have been like, based on the historical works of the era.

Other than that, we stuffed ourselves with good old-fashioned German beer and wursts and schnitzels and sauerkraut in the best tourist style. Gained a few kilos I think. But it was worth it, since we never eat that way at home.

The last few days have been hectic. Have been persuaded into participating on a charity CD for the now-homeless child survivors of the tsunami. For the last few days our house has been turned into a makeshift studio, friends moved in with a vast array of mikes and sound equipment and upscale computer progams. More friends moved in with a vast array of instruments of various sorts. Some hectic days of recording, re-recording, and mixing. The end result is not perfect but there are some nice songs there. I think the liner notes are in the works now, and then it will be ready for distribution and sale. The CD is called “Karamat” and is a collection of really old Middle Eastern melodies, some instrumentals and some vocals. If you’re interested you can contact pranaparis for more info.

Our friend Yola is in town to do a workshop on pranic healing. I found it really fascinating. Have never thought of myself as having any particular abilities in this direction, but was really amazed to learn that I could see auras, and that if I would just let go and trust myself I could “feel” body energy with my hands, which is what you have to do in order to clean away bad energy. The feeling is subtle, but if you’ve ever practiced tai chi or chi qong and “felt” the ball of chi energy between your hands while doing the movements, then you could do this too.

With Yola at the house, lots of people were stopping by either to interview her for radio or tv, or for a healing session. It’s hard for most people to believe things they can’t see, although if you think about it there’s nothing particularly rational about that viewpoint. We are constantly being bombarded by all manner of energy wavelengths outside the human frame of reference, from radio waves way too long or short for humans to hear, to gamma rays and neutrinos and other fun things that zip right through our bodies without our noticing. In any case, a piece of visible evidence for those whose watchword is “seeing is believing”: Yola works with a bowl of salt water by her side, so that when she cleans a patient she can throw the “dirty energy” into the salt water, which breaks it down. If this sounds like too much witch doctor mumbo jumbo to you, I do understand. But after she cleaned one person, thirty minutes later the salt in the water had turned black. (She says this is rare.) When we poured out the water there was a black scum on the bottom of the bowl. We took pictures for documentation. No doubt there are those who could find some other plausible explanation for this phenomenon, but it did happen in my house, with my bowl, the same bowl which had been in use all weekend for the same purpose, and it only reacted like this one time out of all those. So how about that.

If you’re interested in learning more about this, buy a book by Master Choa Kok Sui or explore the pranic healing website.

Earlier in December the office organized some literary events: book and poetry readings by Diana Abu Jaber
and Jay Parini.
We had a great time squiring them around to several different campuses, meeting with local writers and poets, and
listening to their works. Diana’s latest work, “Crescent“, was recently translated into Arabic, so she did a book signing at
the local Megastore while in town. I noticed that the following week the book was at Number 9 on the Top Ten list, behind
Bill Clinton’s bio in two languages, Guiness Records of 2004, the DaVinci Code, more effective people lore from Steven
Covery, a posthumous print from Edward Said, and a couple others I can’t recall. The next book is due out later this
spring. Maybe that one will hit number one?

Now that the blog is up and working, I have to change it all. It looks to me like new template creation is more difficult here than with some sites, but I found some good references and let’s see how long it takes to do something. If I ever have time again. ‘Cause tomorrow it’s back to work.
(sigh).

Happy 2005 to all.

Please remember those who lost their lives, friends, family members in Asia this past week.

May the New Year bring peace, prosperity and joy to all.