Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Here lies a bundle of notes from a prolonged escape attempt, into quieter reaches of the American Southwest-- an incomplete work, or loose translation. There is an odd, fragmentary peace that runs through the stitching at times. It started on a southern Nevada highway when I noticed something. The ground was a simple epic curve, immune to any useful concept of scale, and powerlines dissolved deep on the horizon. That's it, really. That's what I saw.

Oh sure, as I wandered more I saw many other raw earth masterworks and even read some of the brochures. For example, in southern Utah, Moab Valley was a "sinkhole" some 300 million years ago, alternately dry and ocean-covered for millions of years, which left a thousand feet of residual salts. By 240 million years ago the ancestral Rockies had eroded (ponder that!) and filled the Moab rift with dunes, but 40 million years later the region was a mud flat and the seashore went back and forth and made the Moenkopi layer, until the sea retreated and left a vast Sahara-scape that formed the Navajo sandstone revered by mountain bikers. Layer on layer formed on the aforementioned fluid salt bed, which accounts for Navajo strata at different levels across the Moab sink, overlain by Entrada, a fine-grained arch builder. By 140 million years ago, eastern Utah sank and filled with more sediments. Morrison shale pastels harbor dinosaur fossils and uranium in no particular order. And we're still 140 million years out! You get the idea.

But what does such fuzzy infinitude mean to that micro-blip of human consciousness at last able to postulate it? Eternal rock strain theories are now covered in detail, but what is it like to be in the field? Are senseless numbers up to the task?

i just completed a historic geology course and you are right on the money. enjoyed this much. one of the things i like about this forum/website is the diversity of expression. people experiment and take chances.

Thanks Constantine. I'm about to publish my odd mish/mash of desert/road notes from the last several years (with "a little help from my friends"-- lucky for me), so I wrote an intro in mish/mash style as well. I don't think I'll add much more-- maybe a quick note on religious excess protests (in self-defense, of course) scattered throughout...

Yeah, geology and I have an on/off relationship. At times it intrigues me, but more often it leaves me cold. Its scope and span is incomprehensible, almost to the point of meaningless. We become "invisible" to the earth clock... Anyway, thanks for reading!

Good luck with the publishing!!!! Let me know when your book comes out I would love to read it!!!!
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economic news

wow!!!!! great, mnaz!!!!!!!!

Yeah, indeed Mnaz this is a book I really really want.
I love your juicy, yet distant takes on things. You take me to the hidden, silent parts of myself with your writing, and I want to go there, and keep on going. Marquez does this to me too.
Let me know when it's out okay. I can hardly wait.
I think your friends are smart to back you on this.
I would in a heartbeat, if I could....no lie.
H

Dave! Arcadia! Hest!

I thought I was done last fall, but then I thought of something else. Then I thought I was done last month, but forgot my intro... Damn, this book thing is harder than I thought...

Well this "I can't wait till it comes out" is harder then I thought!!!! He he!!!!
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grapefruit strain

This book is a disjointed bundle of notes stitched from a prolonged escape attempt into quieter reaches of the American Southwest-- an incomplete work, or loose translation. I had peace in mind, but it's an odd, fragmentary peace that runs through the stitching, which began on a southern Nevada road when I saw something. The ground was an epic curve, immune to any useful concept of scale, and powerlines dissolved deep on the horizon. That's it really.

Oh sure, as I wandered more I saw many other raw earth masterworks and even read some brochures. For example, southern Utah's Moab Valley was a sinkhole some 300 million years ago, alternately dry and ocean-covered for millions of years, which left a thousand-foot salt bed. By 240 million years ago the ancestral Rockies had eroded (ponder that!) and filled the Moab rift with dunes, but 40 million years later the region was a vast mud flat and the seashore went back and forth and made the Moenkopi layer, until the sea retreated and left a Sahara-scape that made the Navajo sandstone revered by mountain bikers. Layer on layer formed on the aforementioned (fluid) salt bed, which accounts for Navajo strata at different levels across the Moab sink, overlain by Entrada, a fine-grained arch builder. By 140 million years ago eastern Utah sank and filled with mud. Morrison shale pastels harbor dinosaur fossils and uranium in no particular order. All this and still 140 million years to go! You get the idea.

But what is it like to be in the field? What does fuzzy eternal rock strain mean to a micro-blip of human consciousness thereon? Senseless epochs aside, the desert is "timeless". It may be the landscape least separated from bottomless earth, from "a different world, older and greater and deeper by far than ours", as the wilderness warrior, general misanthrope, and rapturous desert lyricist Ed Abbey once wrote, where mere language contends with unspoken and time and space become more indeterminate. I had to start somewhere so I chose space-- how it appeared from an east Mojave road, how it sustained and fooled and was put on my eyes and the other senses should rest, though it's natural to feel possibility and suffering on wavering thermals and drafts. One stands out more vividly in space and gets smaller.

Unfortunately it was a time of sectarian strife when I headed out. Little did I know. I tried to counter with separation and return, literally, though I tuned the wrong frequency and the oscillations came a little too quickly. I live on a complex speck that lays claim to its universe, which for all its unbounded glory is a work in progress, like faulted, arid strata of former ocean floors. Space and time are never as they seem, but the sun is out today and the desert is bursting with light, so take a few notes. What is it like to be in the field?

is this the new intro?

welcome to the other? side! fragments, translation, space? time?

so Moab valley is in Utah!!! (now I now where my cousin were doing biking in his photos!!!!!! )

it sounds good (I was joking!!), good luck!!!!!!!!

mnaz... but... but... but this 6 day thing... you know - the bible and all it's holiness..?

i really do like the enormity of time involved in this natural history stuff...

"But what does such fuzzy infinitude mean to that micro-blip of human consciousness at last able to postulate it?"

uhhh... what came first : the big bang or consciousness? i just can't live with that 'micro-blip of human consciousness'... it's belittles it... reduces it to something insignificant and meaningless. but you really didn't mean that, did you? time is really the insignificant thing... something we humans love to count and measure, but it's all heliocentrincally based, and our sun is but a tiny, tiny, infinitesimal spark in the universality of pure consciousness, which engulfs the entirety of the vastness of matter like a fart in the large intestine seeking escape.

Well, not really 'new', Arcadia.. I just finished it. ('tho as always, I shall 'sleep on it'). I tell ya, once you get off into those geologic eons, it's tough to bring it back to the present. Ha!

wow. i sure look forward to getting a copy of the book. awesome work!

~westie

Will you be including the photos with the text?
I hope so.
I hope I will be able to get a copy.

Cecil I struggled for thirty years trying to work my way through one book by Husserl called The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness. Not much got through my thick skull but I do remember one metaphor about the duration of a melody. I would beg to differ with you about time being heliocentric. Well not to differ but to note the difference between objective and subjective time.

I feel like a blip

mtmynd wrote:uhhh... what came first : the big bang or consciousness? i just can't live with that 'micro-blip of human consciousness'... it's belittles it... reduces it to something insignificant and meaningless. but you really didn't mean that, did you? time is really the insignificant thing... something we humans love to count and measure, but it's all heliocentrincally based, and our sun is but a tiny, tiny, infinitesimal spark in the universality of pure consciousness, which engulfs the entirety of the vastness of matter like a fart in the large intestine seeking escape.

'Blip' is my take on human vs. planetary/celestial time... and yes, consciousness transcends humans, and human consciousness is way large within its time blip on the scene, but then isn't that roughly what you arrived at here when you so rudely dismissed the sun as 'infinitessimal', eh?

And thanks, westie. Much appreciated.