Daily Archives: October 20, 2010

Aging, Dreams, Health

The End of Days

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Fall                                           Waxing Harvest Moon

The end of days.  No, not that one.  Just this one and the others.  The end of days is an important moment for me, a time of reflection.  Often, not always, but often, I will sit down and write, thinking as I do back over the day, the anxieties of which, as the New Testament said, were sufficient unto it.  So, here in the quiet, the gathering darkness headed toward the Solstice of Winter, I cast off those anxieties, trying to get to sleep.

Most of the time, over the last few years anyway, getting to sleep has not been a problem for me.  Sometimes, rarely now, I’ll awaken and not be able to sleep.  I’ve learned that instead of railing against it, I just get up and read until I feel sleepy again.  Won’t be a problem tonight.  I hope.

Most of the time sleep comes with difficulty when I’ve either been over stimulated during the day, an exciting debate or tour or new idea keeps kicking around even after bedtime; or, I’ve got an event upcoming in which I need to perform well.  Sometimes that causes me to lose sleep.  A speech, a tour of Chinese art for the Chinese Heritage Foundation, finishing a sermon.  Not often in either case, but they do happen.

I love sleeping.  And dreaming.  Off and on over the years I’ve kept records of my dreams.  I like to do it on a regular basis, but it doesn’t hold my interest for long, in spite of my intense curiosity.  The dream time has given me many important insights.  Right now my body is telling me I need to go dream.  Good night.

Cinema and Television, GeekWorld

Various Ways to Watch A Movie

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Fall                                              Waxing Harvest Moon

When I workout, on my treadmill 5-6 days a week, I watch movies.  That means I need a source of movies since I can go through 2-3 in an average week.  I used Comcast for a while, with their movies on demand, but the cable box won’t let me.  I’ve swapped it out twice with no joy and had a comcast person come by the house and offer to set up a service call.  I took him up on the offer, but no one showed up.  I still have the service, in part because they also provide a reasonably good internet connection, though it’s slow and expensive relative to the rest of the world.  I bought movies for a while, but that was expensive and I had to buy a lot.  Blockbuster and I shared many transactions, but that required physically going to the store and remembering to return stuff on time.  My current solution is netflix.  They mail me movies, I watch them and mail them back.  Pretty easy.

Netflix also has a service which allows you to watch movies over the internet if you have a properly configured device.  Upstairs, where Kate’s Wii sits, I long ago connected with our wireless router and happily watch movies up there without mailing, buying or stopping somewhere.  A while back I began looking at the Playstation 3 because it has a blu ray DVD player and the capacity for wireless link up.  The Wii is not blu-ray.  So, I ponied up the cash and bought one for downstairs.

It took the better part of 3 hours to get it connected to the internet, get permission to stream the Netflix movies and configure the blu ray remote I purchased.  It took so long because computers are, in essence, stupid things that only do exactly what they’re told and if you miss a beat on a password, a step in a process, or don’t wait long enough for a particular action, nothing happens and you have to start over.  I know this from years of handling electronics in various forms, still I dithered, shuffling my desktop with a password over to the Playstation, then back to the desktop to finally write down the password I’d not remembered quite correctly.  And so on.

Still.  I got it done.  Now I can watch movies from a broad selection with minimal hassle.  It’s important to keep in mind when mumbling through the set up of some electronic device that the time it will save way more than compensates for the groaning and moaning, so it’s worth it.  I keep telling myself that.

Aging, Art and Culture, Friends

Representative

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Fall                                                     Waxing Harvest Moon

Spent much of the day with stars in my eyes.  Literally.  After those damned dilating drops at the ophthalmologist.  However, my pressures are still below glaucoma level and the photographs of my retina show insignificant change.  The technician photographing my retinas kept saying, “Watch the green dot.  Your eye’s moving.  Watch the green dot.”  Well, geez.  I thought I was doing a damned good job of keeping my eye from doing its normal task, checking out those flashing lights to the left.  Apparently not good enough.  Anyhow.

Over to Cafe Ena, a Latin fusion restaurant, at the intersection of 46th and Grand for lunch with the docent outing crew.  I had mofongoed Yucca.  This involves pounding and cooking it in some way according to our waiter.

After lunch I walked with Allison and Jane MacKenzie from the Cafe to the Weinstein gallery.  Martin Weinstein, the gallery owner, introduced the current show of Robert Mapplethorpe, Alec Sloth and August Sanders portraits.  He represents Alec, a local boy now part of Magnum, and Robert Mapplethorpe’s estate.

Curious about the business side of gallery work, I asked Martin how representing an artist worked.  Turns out he ships art, packing and insuring it, both incoming and outgoing.  He frames all the pieces or arranges for them to be mounted.  He manages the three buildings that constitute his modest, spare gallery space, pays a woman to assist in the complex logistics of the business.  He also collaborates with museums to mount shows of his artists, mostly on his nickel.  In addition he mounts several shows a year with all the attendant costs, including a reception with wine and cheese, plus boarding and expenses for the artist.  This is all sunk cost, paid out long before any commissions come in from sales.

It is, he emphasized, “A very stressful business.  Always this coming, that going.”  Martin is a tall, slightly stooped man with a shock of white hair and round architect type glasses, thick ones.

The photographs were elegant, Martin was entertaining and there was a good turn out.  A fine afternoon.  Thanks, Allison.