The Storm

I dreamed of these things in the early winter dark and looked out across the lake as the storm came rolling in to disrupt the order of the world I was just beginning to know and by which I already felt constrained.  

- brief excerpt from my current novel, as yet unnamed - RDW.

tCL: Imagespiration

Illness and Kafka

Travelling to Kafka's hometown in 2006.


Kafka understood that travel, sex, and books are paths that lead nowhere except to the loss of the self, and yet they must be followed and the self must be lost, in order to find it again, or to find something, whatever it may be - a book, an expression, a misplaced object - in order to find anything at all, a method, perhaps, and, with a bit of luck, the new, which has been there all along.

Roberto Bolano, from "Literature + Illness = Illness".

Boating: Day Two

We went for our first cruise with the parents this afternoon.  I went through all the check-out procedures so I can use the boat on my own.  We had a great time; many thanks to Dad and Cathryn for hosting us on their swell new water-whip.
 

Saturday

Friday night we stayed in and cooked.  Saturday morning we woke up and drove to Sayers Park, to meet Chris and Jen on their boat, then rode down to Andrews Bay at Seward Park.  We swam and had a lunch of cheese and charcuterie that we brought along.  Chris had to be at a barbecue at 5:00, so we were back on land by 2:30.  We came home, took naps and drove out to Tyler's on Alki for a barbecue of our own.    Then, we went to the rooftop terrace at the newly-built Hard Rock at 1st and Pike.  Our friend Sarah was visiting from LA and met us there, along with a big group of people, some of whom we've known for years.  It was a warm night and although the crowd was kind of typical and unexciting, the setting is as good as any I know in Seattle on a warm summer night.

Adrienne's Paraguay

My youngest sister is a natural photographer and, at the moment, a professional one.  I like this photo and I recommend her blog.  Paraguay is a rough place.

Please, please...

...please read the article below.  And if you don't get it the first time, read it again, paying extra attention to "P".  An incremental increase in my good will toward the world has resulted merely from the fact of its publication in an American newspaper.  I would love to hear comments, too.  No one has talked to me for a while.

The weight of the evidence is against the concept of free will and even the realness of the conscious mind these days.  Descartes has been debunked.  Still, the whole problem is rarely described with the lucidity of the following:

The Stone: Your Move: The Maze of Free Will

By GALEN STRAWSON

Published: July 22, 2010

Logic tells us free will isn't possible. Then why do we feel responsible for what we do?