= M =

Oh what it must have felt like on November 11, 1918. The _end_ of a war, and not the talk of starting one. The laying down of weapons.

Peace.

=M=

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 5

= M =

Today is so loud to me. It's raining here, conjuring the melancholy for which places like Seattle and Ireland are known.

I have a song I made a while back, called This Plane, which, perhaps you've heard before, but in a different context, in a different mood, a different light. I would like to dedicate this song to those who are no longer with us. Those who are no longer here with us in this plane of existence, this thin, humbling, fleeting moment we call life on planet earth.

This Plane: https://youtu.be/fcJNEooffv8?si=ZriIV...

=M=

2 months ago | [YT] | 10

= M =

Just now, I got thinking about an old adage, "if I can just reach one person." It's a phrase that's often associated with politics and art and health and things like that. It's almost always associated with doing good things, using one's efforts to make the world a better place.

I've generally been a man of few words, I don't crave the limelight. I remember "show and tell," when I was young, at Lincoln elementary. I generally didn't show anything, but if I had something I really did want to show, I felt like showing it. Even at that age, I didn't want to waste your time with trying to get unnecessary attention.

I've liked the music world, the photography world, etc. because you can spend a lot of time in your own personal process, coming up with your best. Then, if there's time to present, you can present your best. It's a very different thing than craving attention. "Look at me, look at me, look at me", well, I've never really felt that way. If it turns to me, I like to have something on hand to say "look at _this_ ", not "look at _me_ ". Perhaps I'm denoting a lack of confidence, but I don't think that's it; I consider it more about respecting other people's time, their lives.

Anyhow, "if I can just reach one person", so I got thinking of that tonight. Amongst the amazing channels and talent in the world, there are people speaking to millions of subscribers. It's astounding, and fun to get to witness. I've seen what jealousy does to people, and that's a thing I haven't wanted to explore. In other words (in better words), I love watching people succeed. There are a number of stories I'm following whose successes I love hearing about. Their heart is in the right place, their motivations are true, they've truly found a thing worth sharing.

So tonight, I'm just taking a moment to say thank you to my 170 subscribers. There are currently more than 8 billion people in the world, and there are at least 170 to whom I get to speak. In this lonely world, there isn't _nobody_ with whom to speak, no, there are 170 people who might give me a listen, might hear what I have to say, might wonder how I see the world we're in, all 8 billion of us.

I surely try to share things you might find worthwhile, maybe even valuable.

I thank the bunch of you. I wish goodness upon you, in all its forms, most easily referred to as love ❤

=M=

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2 months ago | [YT] | 13

= M =

This post is an unofficial application to be a foreign correspondent to a fellow in another state. In the post-hype internet world, after the exploration of making our lives look extra glamorous, a channel has emerged showing life in its ordinary magnificence in daily time, the wonderous mysteries and stories all around us every day. He does videos of his local area, a variation of interests. Brake jobs, delicious eats, area buildings, planes flying in the sky, sunsets in motion. The rockin' and rollin', the barn scrollin', the eye peelin' and wheelin', the Smooth Soother and true crooner, the originator of the Elvis Beatles, Mr. John Sayles!

I was driving grain, I couldn't stop and capture, but I hit this button to take a picture while keeping my eyes on the road, so I didn't know how the picture would turn out. But there was a plane flying in and amongst the wind turbines, with sunlight in the background like this //// and sunlight in the foreground like this\\\\\, with a plane flying in the middle of it. I couldn't capture on video, so I adjusted the image with contrast, exposure, saturation, etc. so you could see it better.

Perhaps everyday life is where it's at! And I can be your North Dakota guy, while John is your Illinois guy. Perhaps there's even a few other states out there with people living regular lives!

Here's one to the inimitable stylings of John Sayles! Do you know what time it is? 😉👍

=M=

3 months ago | [YT] | 11

= M =

I'm not much of a drawer, I draw sometimes just to convey an idea or to exercise that part of the mind. Every once in a while I draw something that has some merit, but mostly just to notate an idea important to me. This drawing is regarding some advice I got from Dad.

Dad told me "It isn't the cards you're dealt, it's what you do with them." He'd been dealt some strange experiences in life, enough so that the experiences show up in psychology books about why serial killers happen etc. He had some similar experiences to serial killers, but he chose to use that experience differently.

I carry some of this with me. I try to look through to the essence of a thing. What caused it. What created it. Why is that thing the way it is? Is there anything we can do about it? Can we make it better? Sometimes the creature has a thorn in its paw or something like that, is all, and you happen to have the tool to get it out.

I, too, have had some strange experiences in life, some I chose, some I didn't. Not to the extent Dad did, but I try to learn lessons from others and carry them with me. I don't try to pretend to be a perfect person. I just know that love truly is the answer.

Sharing these songs and videos and thoughts and drawings is me sharing my cards with you. Take the hand I was dealt, try it out. I try to keep them in order so they're easier to make sense of and find again, but I'm not great at that either.

Many times, when people think of life "dealing a hand", they go straight to gambling, like they just got instructions in a Monopoly game or something "DO NOT EVALUATE CARDS, DO NOT PASS GO, GO DIRECTLY TO GAMBLING". Myself, I can't get a handle on gambling at all, I can't even find the doorway.

"It's not the cards you're dealt, it's what you do with them" was what Dad told me, quite a lot like how ol' Stan Lee said it, "With great power comes great responsibility." They're not exactly the same, but touch upon similar ideas. There's real truth in some of the old sayings, like "great minds think alike".

Anyhow, take my hand, and, you know, you'll save us all a little effort if you don't drop them, because they're in order. 😂

=M=

3 months ago | [YT] | 10

= M =

I spent the day painting yesterday. There are quite a few different techniques for painting, and this set of techniques is particularly esoteric, but I'm pleased with the results.

First, I took a piece of glass, and ran it fairly perpendicular to the ground at speeds around 60 mph. You have to catch floating organic sacules in the air onto the glass, and you have to catch them at certain times of day when they are most abundant. It takes several passes over several miles to spread the organic material properly. Plus, I added extra weight to the glass to ensure the effect would work well. (For enthusiasts, I used several tons of metal, inside of which were several more tons of organic material, in this case grain.)

Then, it's a waiting game, waiting for the sky to achieve a proper hue, dim enough to meld with incandescent lights covered with colored plastic lenses. Placing the glass at the correct chosen distance, the skylight and the incandescent lights have an approximate similar luminescence for proper exposure to be captured by a cell phone camera. The accrued organic material on the plate glass captures incandescent light while pairing with the proper amount of skylight to a degree which doesn't require artificial saturation or any other post-fabrication manipulation.

Whether the results please anyone besides myself remains to be seen.

=M=

P.S. Another way to say it is I was driving grain yesterday, and took a photo at the end of the day, but that isn't very exciting, now, is it.

3 months ago | [YT] | 10

= M =

Dear subscribers,

This week I'll have some songs for you exploring the topic of Folk music. Music genres are very interesting when you dig into them, they range from very general to very specific, often fusing together multiple genres. An example, Bluegrass players who like Jazz and incorporate Jazz into their music might call their music Jazz Grass, or something to that effect.

In the 90s, I was growing up with Punk Rock, but was exposed to multiple other genres as well. One of my musical heroes then and now is Ian MacKaye, who was instrumental in propelling the Punk scene in Washington DC in the 80s and 90s. If you're able, please enjoy this excerpt of an interview with him discussing some introductory thoughts on music.

https://youtu.be/GiE-jX-VLSk?si=sW9Ye...

=M=

7 months ago | [YT] | 4

= M =

I made this phrase to capture the rhythm and melody of the song, as subtly as possible, hoping you might not notice. Did you notice? 😉

youtube.com/shorts/raGWm7QWc2...

7 months ago | [YT] | 1

= M =

Let's give it a try!

Big numbers can really be boggling, as I mentioned before. Stories in the news use big numbers, and it's difficult to get any sense of what they mean, how they translate. I saw some big numbers recently that we can use to hone the skill of understanding big numbers.

Recently I heard we'll be purchasing some new fighter jets, the F-47. I figured I'd try my short hand formula I described earlier to get a sense of the purchase.

As I mentioned, there are approximately 333,000,000 people in America, so if each person put $3 on a table, it would equal $1 Billion.

As I understand, one F-47 costs $20 Billion. So 20 x $3 = $60. One F-47 costs each American $60 per person. So ten(10) F-47s costs $600 per person. One hundred (100) F-47s costs $6,000 per person.

From what I can tell, we are purchasing between 200 - 250 F-47s. The total for two hundred (200) F-47s is $12,000 per person.

As for the total, regarding two hundred (200) F-47s, it would be 200 x $20 Billion, which equals $4 Trillion.

I don't know if this short hand system is helpful or not, but I thought we could give it a try! There are lots of big numbers out there that are difficult to understand. Don't get me started on the speed of light 😂

=M=

P.S. Kind of a fun one: In over-the-road trucking, truck drivers sometimes use "one million miles" as a marker, a measurement of time and distance on the road. That's somewhere the equivalent of going to the moon and back TWICE!! A very impressive amount of driving! That's like driving coast to coast, round trip, approximately one hundred twenty-five (125) times🤯

8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 7

= M =

Do you know what this is? I was in need of one of these, and there happened to be one on hand. Unbelievably so.

Now, is it possible, in this wide world of activities on planet earth, innumerable pursuits ot every sort, that this item wound up handy at the exact time that I was needing it, exhibiting a presence of mind boggling statistical anomaly? OR is it possible that there are certain types of activities that are sort of linked together, traveling through time and space with a functional relativity?

I had used this item growing up. Had I not used it growing up, I could have looked at it, the VERY item I needed at that moment, and not known what it is for, how it's used, or that it was even there TO be used.

But I did know what it was, and what it was for, and how to use it.

Almost ALL medicine comes from plants. Almost ALL of it. Because plants contain various chemical elements in particular combinations that can be beneficial for causing certain reactions. The day I saw this item, I was in need of specific nutrients, quite desperately. Perhaps even medically. I needed to steam vegetables that contain life-altering nutrients. And when I looked, it was there. Had I never seen this item before, I wouldn't even have known what it was or what it does.

But I had seen one before. I saw this item in the kitchens of my family. My mother, my grandmother, my aunts. I saw it used, I knew what it did. And on this day, it was in a totally unfamiliar kitchen, a non-family kitchen. Is it an incalculable coincidence? OR is it that certain kinds of ideas are hooked together, travel together, live together throughout space and time.

I associate this item, this foldable basket for steaming vegetables, with life, with health, with love, with family, with survival, with emergency AND fun, with necessity AND luxury, with the past AND the future.

After I steamed vegetables in this basket because I knew what it was and how to use it, I felt a LOT healthier. It may even have saved my life that day. And I learned that from my family, and found that other families teach their family members the same important worthwhile practices.

I don't think it's so bizarre that I found that cooking item that day; I think some ideas travel in bundles, packs, groups.

=M=

8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 9