Blog o’ Gnosis

It is amazing, the human capacity to make do and get by, when really we would prefer an entirely different set of circumstances. Perhaps this adaptive trait is what has made us such a successful species—but I didn’t start this post to talk about evolutionary biology. Heavens no!

No, I am excited to spread the word about a major new development in the increasingly adrift world of media outlets. Newspapers across the nation are tanking, newsrooms at every major network are having their budgets slashed, and even the internet has not been able to pick up the slack in terms of investigative journalism—with notable exceptions, of course.

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I periodically lust over things, especially techno-gadgets. I have been pretty good lately in making do with the gadgets I already have: I’ve never owned an iPod, use a bare-bones cell phone, and keep typing away on my old PowerBook, even though the warranty has run out and it is slowly falling apart.

My sole technology purchase last year was a new car stereo for my 1992 Honda. The new one plays CDs, a quantum leap from the broken cassette player in the old one. That upgrade alone has made my driving hours much more enjoyable and productive.

But that’s not to say that I haven’t been following closely the evolution of the gadget I most want to own: the iPhone. Or, as some have snarkily called it, the God Phone. When it came out last year, I sat on my hands and reminded myself that 1) I didn’t absolutely need it; 2) I couldn’t afford it; and 3) it would be cheaper if I waited a few months before buying it. That is the logic of an eventual customer, however, not a frugal skeptic.

It’s funny how the generations relate to each other. Having been born at the tail end of the baby boom, I have had a love-hate relationship with my fellow boomers since I was young enough to know what was cool. The 60’s were cool, damn it, and I had been born 10 years too late to really say I had been there.

Cutting high school to hear Daniel Ellsberg speak in Sproul Plaza in 1978 seemed just, well, derivative. Seeing Crosby Stills & Nash or Emerson Lake & Palmer around the same time was to see not a heyday but a sad, substance-laden dénouement, the dregs of a really good party a decade earlier. And don’t even get me started about the Grateful Dead.

A friend of mine lives right down by Ocean Beach in San Francisco. From the picture windows in her third floor apartment you get a panoramic view of the wild surf that animates the City’s miles-long beachfront promenade. The place is simply stunning. To sit there for an afternoon meeting and have as a backdrop the crashing waves and rip currents, sailboarders and sandcastles while the sun makes the metal-gray water glisten like ivory, is just a sublime experience.

Every time I go there I remember and then forget to bring my camera. But this weekend I remembered and then put my camera into my bag before I forgot again. I wasn’t after a picture of the surf, because really that is too vast an expanse to translate well onto film, least of all my point-and-shoot camera. No, it was to capture this sight which greets the stray visitor who happens to tear her eyes away from the ocean and look east up the gently sloping hills of the City.

Well there I was, cordoned off from polite society for a week, chained to my desk in order to meet a ridiculous self-imposed writing deadline. In such circumstances, the mind is incredibly adept at finding amusements to pass the time in lieu of working on one’s appointed task. Mine certainly rose to the occasion, as [...]

That’s PantheaCon, for those of you jaded enough to think something else. Yes, the much-ballyhooed annual Pagan gathering is commencing this Friday, held in the splendor of a downtown San Jose hotel, and will run all through the long President’s Day weekend.

My crew and I will be at the Serpentine Music booth just inside the front entrance to the vendor’s room, playing all kinds of Pagan music, and selling CDs, songbooks, and DVDs. This year I have teamed up with the excellent Jason Pitzl-Waters from over at the Wild Hunt Blog and A Darker Shade of Pagan radio. Jason suggested some great new music to carry, and I managed to get his very favorite in stock. (If you come to the booth and give the secret blog-reader handshake, you can see his whole top ten list.)

We have had a break in the constant rainy weather of the past few weeks, but this was the first clear day that dawned with no wind. My dog was in desperate need of a bath and I was in desperate need of a walk in the sun, so off we went to walk on [...]

I have heard from several friends in other states and countries since the tiger mauling at the San Francisco Zoo happened last December, killing one young man and injuring two others. Aside from inquiring whether the victims were anyone I knew, there was a decided strain of “what the hell is wrong with you people?” in my friends’ voices.

Back in the early 90s I came across a really amusing article in an obscure little magazine. The article was by this guy who had always wondered what the lyrics were in Manfred Mann’s version of the Bruce Springsteen song Blinded By The Light. You know, the part where they sing “Blinded by the light/wrapped up like a…” or “revved up like a…” What the heck were they singing, anyway?

It was the author’s method of finding out what the lyrics were, in those pre-Google days, that made the article so amusing. He went to the Rainbow Cattle Co. bar in Guerneville one evening and, yelling to be heard over the blare of dance music, asked several of the patrons what they thought the lyrics were. The resulting mini-interviews were hilarious, and the best part is that he never did answer his own question.

We had a couple great blustery rainstorms this week, breaking the long sunny spell of late November. I love watching storms come in here on the coast. Each one is different, but there comes a time in the hours preceding the first downfall when I instinctively head outside to make sure everything is covered that needs protection.