A brief poetic distraction . . .

Several years ago I wrote a poem while in transit between one place and another. At least, I believe that's when I wrote it. You see, I got home, edited it some, and promptly lost it. Well, I finally found it, edited it some more and appended the date when I think I wrote it. I hope the date doesn't make it fiction, but even if it does I still think it's one of my better travel poems. Without further ado I bring you:

Information Dance

Sound.

Color. The

Air is a confusion of

Information.

Esters bunch in pressure waves as

Frequencies collide. One

Wave transmits another, permits

Passage, but

Not

Without

Interference.

Photons skim past the

Rarefied stuff of

Matter.

In the same

Space other ideas find

Transmission.

Above us

Grand algebraic

Dragons bound among fluid clouds of chaos

Transposing genes through

Non-Euclidian space,

Fermenting synaptic construction and

Mixing,

Matching, giving

Passage while

Changing like

Two particles in a

Vacuum.

In this vast cosmic

Radiation of information

Our own attachments

Are both

Distinct and

Infinitesimal.

Next to unity

Beethoven measures the same as

I.

9 December 2011

A bit off topic but oh so important . . .

Here's a little photo-essay that explains a few things.

(The baby is unrelated. Well, not unrelated, exactly, but not ours.)

This is a little overdue, but hopefully it gets the point across. Thank you.

The Face of the Earth or Where Have I Been Lately?

First, to discourage the ugly rumors that might pop up when you disappear for six months:

I am not dead. In fact, I am VERY not dead. I'm so not dead I'm getting married. (Death tends to annul marriages in even the most conservative of cultures.) Which also explains why the 2012 installment of the annual fleet review didn't happen in 2012. It's been rescheduled as a coronation review. More on that later. But for now I give you a few photographs from a recent trip to visit my intended Queen:

These things tend to begin when you arrive in distant places. It's been my turn twice now. Next time she can do the arriving.

Once you're done arriving, you might pass an immigration interview.

After which celebration might be called for . . . 

Sometimes young Beans like to shoot zombies with peas . . .  

More elaborate celebrations might call for trips to visit interesting places like museums filled with rusting locomotives. (I do have a somewhat anomalous definition of interesting.)

Thank goodness she loves me. I enjoy my locomotives, but they'd be a lot less interesting without good company.

Buddhist temples are also worth seeing.

If you chance to visit Vietnam, do eat the food. The food is generally incredibly fresh and very very good. And the array of different eats is positively dizzying.

Did I mention temples?

The landscape is also quite lovely.

Since Vietnam is conveniently located between India and China (hence the regional exonym Indochina) Vietnamese religious culture is nearly as rich and ancient as Vietnamese cuisine. Buddhism is much more prevalent than Hinduism, but both can be found. I believe this is an older Khmer icon but I will not attempt to comment on who might be depicted.

Somewhere in the above room I can only surmise there must also have been an icon of Shiva. As it happens, he's not the only creator/destroyer who can dance.

Of course, smiles from loved ones do give us a reason to dance. Cam on em yeu. Gap lai em rat sau.