{"id":15342,"date":"2014-03-14T12:51:28","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T16:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=15342"},"modified":"2014-03-14T12:51:28","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T16:51:28","slug":"the-uncertain-sum-of-definite-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/the-uncertain-sum-of-definite-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"The Uncertain Sum of Definite Parts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'I<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “I dreamed about a human being,” by Fran Sim\u00f3 (original on Flickr<\/a>; used under Creative Commons license. For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Life of a Day<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. But there are so few days as compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day were not a hundred times more interesting than most people. But usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills the lost traveler and bunches of cattle. For some reason we like to see days pass, even though most of us claim we don’t want to reach our last one for a long time. We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, no, this isn’t one I’ve been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by perfectly well-adjusted, as some days are, with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the faint odor of last night’s meandering skunk.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Tom Hennen\u00a0[source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>\u00a0(italicized portion):<\/p>\n

The brain’s dynamo runs millions of jobs, by mixing chemicals, oscillations, synchronized rhythms, and who knows what else. It is like looking at a mosaic or a pointillist painting in motion. Study the whole and the parts disappear; study the parts and the whole disappears. Maybe stronger brains will solve that problem in future days.\u00a0I believe consciousness is brazenly physical, a raucous mirage the brain creates to help us survive. But I also sense the universe is magical, greater than the sum of its parts, which I don’t attribute to a governing god, but simply to the surprising, ecstatic, frightening everyday reality we all know. Ultimately, I find consciousness a fascinating predicament for matter to get into.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Diane Ackerman [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Touch Gallery: Joan of Arc<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sculptures in this gallery have been<\/span>
\ncarefully treated with a protective wax<\/span>
\nso that visitors may touch them.<\/span>
\n—exhibitions<\/em>, the art institute<\/span>
\nof chicago<\/span><\/p>\n

Stone soldier, it’s okay now.
\nI’ve removed my rings, my watch, my bracelets.<\/p>\n

I’m allowed, brave girl,
\nto touch you here, where the mail covers your throat,
\nyour full neck, down your shoulders
\nto here, where raised unlatchable buckles
\nmock-fasten your plated armor.<\/p>\n

Nothing peels from you.<\/p>\n

Your skin gleams like the silver earrings
\nyou do not wear.<\/p>\n

Above you, museum windows gleam October.
\nAbove you, high gold leaves flinch in the garden,<\/p>\n

but the flat immovable leaves entwined in your hair to crown you
\ngo through what my fingers can’t.
\nI want you to have a mind I can turn in my hands.<\/p>\n

You have a smooth and upturned chin,
\ncold cheeks, unbruisable eyes,
\nand hair as grooved as fig skin.<\/p>\n

It’s October, but it’s not October
\nbehind your ears, which don’t hint
\nof dark birds moving overhead,
\nor of the blush and canary leaves<\/p>\n

emptying themselves
\nin slow spasms
\ninto shallow hedgerows.<\/p>\n

Still bride of your own armor,
\nbride of your own blind eyes,
\nthis isn’t an appeal.<\/p>\n

If I could I would let your hair down
\nand make your ears disappear.<\/p>\n

Your head at my shoulder, my fingers on your lips—<\/p>\n

as if the cool of your stone curls were the cool
\nof an evening—<\/span>
\nas if you were about to eat salt from my hand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mary Szybist [source<\/em><\/a>]\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Falling Water<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

Suppose we use a lifetime as a measure of the world
\nAs it exists for one. Then half of mine has ended,
\nWhile the fragment which has recently come to be
\nContains no vantage point from which to see it whole.
\nI think that people are the sum of their illusions,
\nThat the cares that make them difficult to see
\nAre eased by distance, with their errors blending
\nIn an intricate harmony, their truths abiding
\nIn a subtle “spark” or psyche (each incomparable,
\nYet each the same as all the others) and their
\nDisparate careers all joined together in a tangled
\nMoral vision whose intense, meandering design
\nSeems lightened by a pure simplicity of feeling,
\nAs in grief, or in the pathos of a life
\nCut off by loneliness, indifference or hate,
\nBecause the most important thing is human happiness—
\nNot in the sense of private satisfactions, but of
\nLives that realize themselves in ordinary terms
\nAnd with the quiet inconsistencies that make them real.
\nThe whole transcends its tensions, like the intimate
\nReflections on the day that came at evening, whose
\nSignificance was usually overlooked, or misunderstood,
\nBecause the facts were almost always unexceptional.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(John Koethe [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

[Starliner] neighborhoods like SloGo, see, have something like real character. The wide corridors are flanked by raised walkways along the sides. These walkways are not carpeted, they don’t simulate hardwood or tile: to all appearances, and maybe in fact, they’re hewn or assembled from rock<\/em> — irregular, cobbled surfaces — a tactile pleasure to walk on. Here in SloGo, they’ve even planted small trees every ten-fifteen meters. Their trunks poke up through the walkways, and their branches broaden and spread, intertwining, along the ceiling. You can walk for quite a few steps without encountering undappled direct lighting and casting sharp shadows. They’ve monkeyed somehow with the air here, too; it’s warm and damp, stirred by artificial breezes from time to time, and carries faint aromas of rain, of food being cooked, of human bodies in motion.<\/p>\n

We’re hardly the only people walking around down here, either. If I wanted, and had time, I could lean up against one of these walls, in a shadowy niche, and pick up scraps of and entire conversations, rich in laughter and exotic accents: people angry and in love, busy and at leisure, geeks and out-of-lucks and swells, dormers and reboots all mingled together.<\/p>\n

I love it.<\/p>\n

Missy loves it, too, and she holds my arm and leans against me as we walk. [Our Pooch] Durwood wurfles overhead, apparently happy, sometimes dipping down to human eye level as though pointing things out, sometimes moving around in the leaves and branches up by the ceiling. We can already tell this won’t be our last visit to SloGo.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(JES)<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

About the image:<\/strong> these 625 faces are but a small fraction of the millions analyzed\u00a0by\u00a0Fran Sim\u00f3, using software which he developed. He says at his site:<\/p>\n

How would a robot imagine a human face? “I dreamed about a human being” is like spying into a robot’s brain.<\/p>\n

“I dreamed about a human being” is part of a project exploring the use of artificial intelligence as applied to photography by using online open source code and data. The project already has a database of 56 million images. We have freely accessible amazing tools and databases of gigantic images, but have not yet fully understood what we can do with them or what it means that they are there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For more information, including a link to a\u00a0fast<\/em>\u00a0frame-at-a-time video of over 2,500 of the project’s images, see this post<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “I dreamed about a human being,” by Fran Sim\u00f3 (original on Flickr; used under Creative Commons license. For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.] From\u00a0whiskey river: The Life of a Day Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,18,5,36,251,3460],"tags":[1438,2217,3438,3759,3760,3761],"class_list":{"0":"post-15342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-computers","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-science-fiction-06_writing","14":"tag-diane-ackerman","15":"tag-artificial-intelligence","16":"tag-john-koethe","17":"tag-fran-simo","18":"tag-tom-hennen","19":"tag-mary-szybist","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3Zs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15342"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15354,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15342\/revisions\/15354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}