The Ascending Incurve of Desirability

2009-05-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Telling
by Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

yours is the heartbreaking story
I read about while eating lunch

mine is the absurdly oversold cable news tragedy
that has been fashioned into a punchline
for a cable clip comedy show

2009-03-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

Conversion
by Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

On that bed
may we not buckle

On the day we’re unmade
may we not stumble

If you’re so inclined,
feel free to fear,
but please save the suffer

ing
ing
ing

Our life isn’t lived
to please one eager to punish

What sort of vengeance do you think lives unseen?

But if a punisher is waiting
if a punisher is waiting

Let him pass over me

2009-01-22T09:28:00.000-08:00

Talking 'Bout No Generation
by Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

“How can we not?”

This was the response a fellow student made in regard to my dismissal of the cultural practice of assigning characteristics to people of a particular generation and categorizing these people based on those characteristics– itself a response to another student reading some of the characteristics of our generation aloud to the class. The air of the fellow student’s comment was not combative, it’s was more like she was trying to appeal to my sense of duty.

This exchange occurred in early December, and it’s still gnawing at me a bit. Ambivalence being a prime motivator for a good deal of my writing (I’ve started to concede to her point while simultaneously holding on to the one I offered in class), I decided that this would be a good topic to write about for my first post of the New Year.

Can a commonality be established between people born within a few years of each other who, as a result of their proximity in time and geography, experience similar historical events? Yes and no seems to be the answer.

Certainly an event on the macroscopic scale that history deals in can cause individuals to act in ways they might not act, were the event never to come to pass. In this way, one can view historical context as a sculptor of generational trend, where commonality begins to emerge. However, because individual response is dynamic, the manner in which a person reacts to an event played out on the historical stage is varied. It is here that it seems that an aggregate begins to stratify and subdivide as much as it unifies and exhibits trends that we can use for categorization.

Additionally, the degree to which a generational commonality manifests depends upon the nature of the objective stimulus visited upon the people who share a proximate relationship in time. By means of a simple example I will attempt to make the point more concrete. Consider two young children who are close in age and have grown up fully immersed in computer technology (to the degree in which we commonly experience it at this point in history). Though these children can be said to share a similar base of computer using experience and will certainly exhibit some degree of commonality such as knowledge of the name and functions of computer peripherals, how to work within a particular computing environment and how to use an internet browser, one can not say that the way in which they use the computer is the same. One child may begin to use the computer to learn about principals of computing from the perspective of an engineer, seeking to understand how to build such a device from the ground up, while the other may simply use it as a gaming device. To generalize and categorize these children simply as computer users glosses over the depth of individual experience and is a disservice to the fact that the children, though they share similar computer skills, have essential differences in the way in which they use their skills.

That being said, it’s hard to escape the thought that shared experience within historically proximate time does contribute to a certain degree of generational trend. Again, the thought here is that the type of event influences the degree of commonality exhibited. An example that comes to mind is The Great Depression. The conclusion that a global economic crisis doesn’t contribute to a common outlook and generational trend is contrarian at best and foolish most definitely.

So where does that leave us? Nowhere and everywhere…

2008-11-07T08:53:00.000-08:00

I’ve Been the Death of Chivalry
by Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

It’s early on a Tuesday morning. I’m waiting at my new since July bus stop with my bike so that I can get to work. When I arrive, there’s no one else waiting. Time passes… a number of route riding regulars, who have been riding the route long enough to act like chitter chatting middle schoolers on a school bus, show up. One of the last to arrive before the bus hits our stop is one such regular – a woman in her late 50’s, who like myself, has a bike in tow.

The bus hits our stop. There’s another bike on the two bike capacity bike rack that’s attached to the front of the bus. The in her late 50’s cancer-surviving bus-riding bicyclist regular begins to adjust her belongings in such a way that I’m lead to believe she’s going to try to take the vacant bike slot, though she was the last to arrive to the stop. After a few twitches of time pass I gain the courage to say, “How are we going to do this… I was here first… you ok with me taking the slot?” She says, “sure that’s fine.”

2008-09-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

Bus Math
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

I overheard a woman using the word yeah excessively while talking to a man on the bus this morning. At 45th and Lamar I decided to tally the amount of times she said the word yeah until either the man she was talking to got off the bus, she got off the bus, or I got off the bus. At Guadalupe and 21st, the man the woman was talking to got off the bus. At that point she said the word yeah 257 times – keep in mind she said the word a considerable amount more than this prior to my tallying… the fact that she used the word excessively was why I began tallying her use in the first place.

When the woman got off the bus, she said yeah once more to the driver, bringing her total for the ride to 258.

I wonder how many times she uses the word in a day…

2008-08-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

Where My People At?
by Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Over the past 2 days, as a gesture of goodwill and solidarity, I’ve waved at/nodded my head to 6 fellow bicyclists I’ve seen on the road while riding my bike home from work/riding my bike to work from home/riding my bike to class from work/riding my bike to work from class… not 1 of the 6 cyclists has reciprocated the gesture.

2008-07-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

Quote by Someone Who Has the Authority to Say So
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

I mean no disrespect, for I truly admire the scientific enterprise for all that it is, but science’s greatest folly is that by means of the controlled experiment, it seeks to understand an existence which is inconceivably dynamic.

2008-07-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

Sea Level
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

It was a pointed remark, meant to make me feel stupid no doubt. May I say that you succeeded... like an unexpected pull at some of my armpit hairs, the remark stung instantly. What was most surprising about your slight diss is that I don’t even really know you, which leads me to think that your strike had to do with your own feelings of ineptitude or inadequacy… like you were waiting for a moment to pounce on someone you perceived to be beneath you as a means to acquire a small amount of admiration of your intelligence and biting wit from the group who played witness – I mean you did come to the party solo, and I’m sure you felt pretty awkward being seated with a bunch of couples. The fact that my significant other and you used to date helped cock the pistol I’m sure.

Days later, on a hunch that sea level elevations might vary based on a location’s general elevation (surely Galveston’s coast isn’t as elevated as Ventura’s based on the fact that Ventura’s general elevation in comparison to Galveston is higher, just as the Himalayas are higher in elevation than the Rockies... just as some points on the ocean floor are more elevated than others even in such cases where the point is a “plateau”) I went searching online for some justification for my thought that you so condescendingly shot down.

Maybe I didn’t have the right strings of words in the search bar or maybe such a thought has no scientific merit, because as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t find any justification. Apparently, in accordance with your understanding and my lack of finding reinforcing evidence in regard to my hunch on the point, I made an idiotic remark.

Maybe one day a team of scientists will prove that sea level is relative to the general elevation of a beach’s location or maybe one day I’ll find the right string of words to enter into the search bar which will yield results of studies on this subject which I can understand and which substantiate my thought... it’s not very likely I know.

A small digression as a means to illustrate deep idiocy: I really wish that a magnet and a magnetically attractive element, when placed on a table outside their magnetic pull to each other, would eventually pull each other close by the force of their own nature, but I am told this is not possible. Still (and this is where the idiocy proves deep), I question whether or not this assertion is accurate. What if it's just a matter of the amount of time the magnet and magnetically attractive element sit just outside their pull to each other? Maybe after X amount of time the two begin to draw closer little by little so that eventually they behave as they usually do when in close proximity, fulfilling an as of yet unobserved destiny?

2008-06-24T16:28:00.001-07:00

Hands Off My Treasure/Trash
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

According to Supreme Court case California v. Greenwood (1988), curbside trash is considered public domain. Obviously, this is an oversimplification of the finding. Just as obvious a fact is that the judgment was made relative to a specific set of legal circumstances, which means that this finding should in no way be used as a broad-based judgment for the myriad issues related to privacy. Yet, as I understand it, this is exactly how law works. It functions as a sort of stopgap measure for a constellation of related issues, and until particular variants are offered up to the scrutiny of judge, jury, and lawyers, one judgment is meant to serve as precedent for all others within the given constellation; in other words, like you and me, the law generalizes as a means of problem solving. Sadly, generalizing can give rise to some fairly nasty forms of bigotry and hatred, and because what we are involved in is nothing less than a highly dynamic reality, generalizing can also work against the party employing the generalization. However, for the sake of mental stability and health, it is often necessary to generalize to stave off the overwhelming nature of potentiality.

All this is meant to serve as a preface to an imagined legal argument that came to mind yesterday related to curbside trash that contains sensitive personal information, like credit card offers, which can potentially be used by identity thieves. The argument would go something like this (please forgive the fairly rudimentary legal speak… the extent of my legal speak vocabulary is limited to what I've heard on courtroom dramas):

"Your honor, my client asserts that because the information used to obtain a credit card with a $10,000 limit was acquired by rummaging through curbside trash, which in accordance with the finding of California v. Greenwood is considered public domain, he has not committed a criminal act of identity theft, but has assumed this identity for financial gain legally. My client argues that it is the responsibility of the rightful owner of the identity to which the credit card offer was made to take necessary steps to properly dispose of personally sensitive information that has the potential to be used in a manner found to be undesirable by the rightful owner of the identity. Any failure to properly dispose of personally sensitive information, such as throwing said information away in the public domain that is curbside trash, makes the rightful owner of the identity negligent and legally responsible for any debt incurred in his/her name by another party."

No doubt this is an absurd and primitive legal argument, which I can only hope would be struck down in the high courts of our law, but then again, I've heard that despite Good Samaritan laws, plaintiffs have won lawsuits where they sue defendants who broke their ribs while conducting CPR on them.

2008-06-11T16:03:00.000-07:00

Storage Space
by Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

The box that contains the philosophical position that the philosophical position that states that there is no ultimate truth is an ultimate truth.

2008-05-16T05:32:00.000-07:00

Apology
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

To the 3rd grade boy on my last tour for the New Art in Austin exhibition at the Austin Museum of Art who told me the exhibit of ceramics by artist Stephanie Wagner was all dogs that I corrected by saying the collection of ceramics wasn't all dogs: "I'm sorry… I was mistaken…the collection of ceramics is all dogs… I should have listened to you instead of correcting you."

2008-04-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

Everytime I read Glasstire I get depressed... I think I might stop reading it...

2008-04-02T05:33:00.000-07:00

Right After Riding the Judge Roy Scream
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Did you use the word to enlighten or were you seeking to make a distinction between your understanding and mine? It's not like I have a dictionary in hand for every unfamiliar adjective or term that somebody throws my way in conversation.

I was being succinct. You could have just asked me what the word meant if you didn't understand it.

If we were talking about a scientific or mathematical concept or even some concept related to a skill, I'd have no problem asking you to define a word I didn't know, but we were talking about a character in a movie. Why not communicate in a less high-flown or showy manner about something so insignificant? If I have to ask you to explain what you mean by a specific word, then hasn't the point of using it to communicate succinctly been undermined? If you want to say that you felt the main character, after being horribly injured, displayed a deep respect for life's divinity in a way that rang false to you, then why not say that…this as opposed to trying to stuff a great deal of meaning into a five syllable word.

Using your logic, why wouldn't I break down every word to a more essential point?

Why don't you?

Because that's ridiculous… worthy of being laughed at… we use words to put a cap on experience in an attempt to make sense of it. Breaking words down to ever smaller units of understanding is like mistaking the forest for the decomposing pine needles.

Well I think the use of showy words is tied to a need to dominate others... the more difficult or obscure the word used is, the stronger the desire of the user to dominate an other's understanding. Rather than adopting the purposely difficult language used by literary fetishists and cinephiles and critics of both literary works and film, I think you should be vigilant in breaking your words down so that anyone might be able to participate in the discussion should they want to.

Feel better now?

Yeah, let's go get some funnel cake.

2008-01-26T05:05:00.000-08:00

Door-to-Door
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

The da da da da da…………DA DA! knock at the door disrupted my work on a project. In the split of an instant, I went from paying it no mind to deciding to go to the door to see who might be knocking at 2:00 on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The knock was friendly…and I’m one who loves an unexpected visit from a friend, so there’s the explanation for the split of an instant change in response to the knock at the door…what a sucker I am. I eyed through the peephole and saw a stranger walking back to the street from where he came. He turned to look at my door twice. Lured by the hope (or was it desperation?) apparent in that second look back, I opened the door and walked out to the sidewalk to meet the stranger.

“Hello sir…I’m here representing some organization I’ve never heard of whose mission it is to teach young individuals like myself the proper work skills…more of the idealistic mission statement rhetoric piled on to more of the idealistic mission statement rhetoric… “I need to gain 2500 points and right now I’m at…” I need some money from you is all I really hear.

Now it's not as though I don’t feel for the guy’s situation (What’s his situation exactly? He’s a young black man trying to make his way in the world – whatever that means – the best I can tell. If he is trying to make his way in the world, I’d say first thing’s first…he should ditch working this door-to-door gig…don’t care what you’re representing…door-to-door has been thoroughly abused as a conversion strategy…its scarce rewards are one step removed from a bank heist or hostage-taking. I don’t think there are even many Girl Scout troops left who find the door-to-door method to be effective…mostly they just hang out in malls and outside shops and grocery stores to sell you their cookies), but what can I really do for this guy if I don’t want to give him money. I talk to him for a bit…

“How do you go about gaining your points?”

“I sell magazine subscriptions for these fine publications.”

This jogs my memory.

“My wife has subscribed to two separate magazines through your organization.”

“No she hasn’t…we’re pretty new”

“Ok…well, if it’s not your organization, then it’s an organization similar to yours”

“How was it similar?”

“It was an organization that was trying to rehabilitate young men by having them sell magazine subscriptions door-to-door”

“I don’t know nothing about rehabilitation man…this isn’t for people coming off…..crack or something. This organization is trying to teach young people a good work ethic.”

“Sorry”

“Let me ask you, did your job pick you or did you pick your job?”

“I’d say it was a little of both.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was looking for a job, and the company I work for was looking for someone to fill a job.”

“Well you’re happy to have your job right? I mean it’s a career you’re passionate about.”

“I wouldn’t say that…I’m thankful for my position, but I’d prefer to be able to work as an artist full-time.”

“Right, but you’re thankful…it helps you out…it’s a good career.”

“Sure…alright”

“So this organization is trying to do the same for me. Also, it’s trying to help the economy because, as you know, the most crucial age group for our economy is individuals 18-30. If individuals in this age bracket are in trouble, our economy is in trouble.”

“Right…like I said, my wife has already subscribed to two separate magazines trying to help an organization similar to yours so I don’t think I’ll be subscribing to any magazines today.”

“When did she subscribe?”

“Uh...Rolling Stone in…2006? and Elle in 2007?”

“Have a good day.”

He walked off obviously ticked that I’d refused to help him earn his points, and I felt exposed – was I a more sophisticated form of racist for incorrectly presuming he represented rehabilitation efforts? Would offering up my money to buy a magazine subscription have cleansed me of such a sin? By answering the door, I felt as though I had become the face for a little part of what’s wrong with the world…as egotistical as that may be. I then started thinking that as an act of revenge for misunderstanding his situation in addition to refusing to help him once his situation had been somewhat clarified, he might come back and break into my home and steal my possessions – a deeper more venomous strain of my racism for sure. Did my fears even have anything to do with his race or was it his person or was it both of these things or neither of these things?

The distance is so wide between one and an other. How can we ever hope to bridge it?

I walked inside and closed the door…saddened by the state of things.

2008-01-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

At the Bar with a What Do You Call ‘em?...Right, a Nihilist
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Tell it like it wasn’t

Go on…white(lie)-it-out

Switch a horse in the stable
For a car in the garage
Fail to make a distinction between
A trip to the moon
And a voyage to Mars

Call roses by any other name – how about wine?

I’d imagine they taste as bitter
But aren’t as warm going down

2008-01-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

Empty-Handed
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

can I describe
my dropped-jawed realization?

no more pretending now…this is the real thing…

i’m shut out
without

so close to becoming
nothing more than a fetishizer of flatlining routine

all that drive
all that hope

fell out of the grocery sack
somewhere in the parking lot

still

i’m offered so much
and am in love with most of it
despite how it taunts

hands to receive with gratitude
that which people aren’t able to take from me

2008-01-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

Story Idea for an Epic Hollywood Sci-Fi Flic
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

In the very distant future a virus kills off all of humanity. This virus adapts until eventually it gains a consciousness and exhibits a dominant life pattern similar to that of the long forgotten human race.

While exploring their world, the conscious viral race discovers the ruined cities and towns of ancient humanity as well as naturally preserved human remains and wonders how their own lives might be connected to this vanished form of existence.

When the viral race learns that their microbial ancestors used humanity as a host and were responsible for the downfall of the human species, global power structures of varying sort decide that efforts must be made to resurrect humanity so that the conscious viral race might be absolved of the guilt of a murderous heritage. After many years of failure, the viral race successfully regenerates humanity.

Despite the viral race’s efforts to keep humanity’s history of extinction a secret, thanks to rogue members of viral society, humans learn about their period of extinction caused by the viral race.

Global turmoil erupts, but life ultimately prevails.

What form of life prevails is anybody’s guess...

2007-12-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

Their Respective Documentation Features Each Other
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

The two performance artists walked the streets in character hoping to get reactions from passersby with their subtle performative provocations. One artist was in a beautifully constructed hand tailored suit, while sporting a scraggly week-old beard and a disheveled haircut that had obvious chunks taken out of the sides and the back. The other artist scratched his left armpit continually. Both artists were documenting their performances with little clip-on cameras they bought from a security and surveillance store.

The artists passed each other on the street, each one unaware that the other was performing and documenting.

2007-11-24T07:10:00.001-08:00

Handwriting
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Some unknown number of times I’ve written in the address for the office on the mailing label for the envelope. Sure, it cramps my hand a little to do so. More importantly, I’m aware of the fact that this is a highly inefficient way to address the label for the envelope. In an effort to achieve efficiency, I could create a template for the office address and print the address on a large number of labels so that I have a preprinted option for addressing the office. As an added benefit, I’m sure the office addressed would appreciate receiving a more neatly addressed envelope – my handwriting is pretty pitiful.

I don’t refuse the more efficient/neater to read addressing method out of some poetic resistance to technology…come on, this is the 21st century...who has time for such a ridiculous stance? Inevitably, that which we are accustomed to changes (yet strangely this trite sentiment does not) so why be a muddy stick in the keyboard if I can help it?

I don’t get around to creating an address template for the office because I enjoy writing by hand (muddy stick in the keyboard metaphor be dammed)…just as the programmer enjoys programming a program that provides people the option to avoid having to do so.

2007-09-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

Recent Performances in Which These Words are the Only Documentation
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

1) Dropped my preparatory materials by Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes during James Housefield's lecture to docents concerning the art pieces in the Austin Museum of Art's exhibit Extra-Ordinary Selections from the Whitney Museum of American Art. Everyone turned and looked at me as though I had stepped on the tail of a cat. 8/24/07

2) Danced in front of the Paramount Theatre on Congress while an Austin Duck Adventures tour guide explained the history of the theatre to his tour. 8/24/07

3) Sang along to Harry Nilsson's version of the Randy Newman song The Beehive State while sitting in my car at a traffic light. I had my windows down. The car next to me, whose windows were also rolled down, rolled their windows up after a few seconds of being subjected to my singing. 9/17/07

4) Witnessed a GMC brand SUV almost hit a bicyclist on 6th street. The bicyclist had the right-of-way in my opinion. Though, I may be biased. 9/21/07

5) Walking from 8th and Congress to 1st and Congress, I rubbed my nose each time I passed a person (or group of persons) on the sidewalk. 11/27/07

6) While descending 17 floors in a service elevator that had a security camera for monitoring purposes, I slowly spun myself in circles. No one else was in the elevator at the time. 11/28/07

2007-09-16T18:57:00.001-07:00

An Aphorism Six Months in the Making
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Theme – the literary set’s glorified version of a movie tagline.

2007-09-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

The Show About the Show About the Show
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife
www.FlatLife.net

It’s the logical next step really… a comedy program for network television about the actors, writers, producers, and executives who produce a comedy program for network television that takes a behind-the-scenes look at a comedy program for network television. Just adding that extra little bit of self-reflexivity to the already proven self-absorbed comedic formula will really make heads spin.

So simple…

2007-09-03T10:01:00.009-07:00

Concerns of a Prismatist
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

While making photographs a couple of days ago, I came across a snippet of a sentence that may be a good starting place for this writing. There are many such intros I have floating about (by this I mean intros derived from a snippet), but of all such intros, the following is the most finely pointed…a quality I tend to like, for in it lies a more subtle form of abstraction…one of the most fundamental aspects of existence in my opinion.

The snippet:

“popularism – more sensational forecasts and more bizarre forecasters are taking over and are displacing serious and methodologically sound work…”

Now I realize that in reading this snippet, one does not have the benefit of knowing the larger context from which the snippet was snipped. Rest assured, other than the title of the book in which this snippet comprises part of an editorial note, neither do I. Really, I don’t believe that knowing the larger context from which the snippet was snipped is necessary (not even the title dear reader) to sense that the editor thinks only the most scientifically able-minded should hold court in a presumably technical arena where scientific accuracy is of the utmost importance.

In my recent past I would have read this snippet as being in contempt of a greater contingent of the population and the abilities inherent to it. I would have read the fragment of the snippet “methodologically sound work” as a presumptive bias against minds that simply differed in expression within a scientific subset; this in the name of scientific purity. Because, what is sound work anyway? Can anyone truly claim to know the shape of it?

Lately however, I have made strides to undermine the defensiveness of this view mainly because it is my current belief (a most apparent one at that) that there are those who are more capable and less so. This as it applies to all things. Though this is the case, my most pressing point is that the divide not need be contemptuous. Illustratively, in the realm of art, there are those who can reproduce the human face and form in a most realistic fashion (hello Chuck Close and Ron Mueck) and those who are less capable whether it be due to a lack of ability or the result of stylistic conceits (hello Grandma Moses and Francesco Clemente). Should all other forms of artistic expression, relative to the human form, cease simply because a few can reach the dizzying heights of virtuosic sublimity? I say absolutely not!

In a similar manner, should I be threatened that there are those in the world that claim me (by way of a word like popularism…for I am nothing if not a part of the contingent euphemistically mentioned in the snippet – this as it applies outside the context of the book from which the snippet came) as unworthy of holding court in a specific arena? Again I say, absolutely not! I am unqualified to hold court in almost all arenas…especially the scientific. To me, qualification denotes conditioning. In turn, conditioning denotes adherence to prescription…prescription here meaning an assigned perspective.

I do not have the luxury of adhering to an already mapped out way of thinking. I am sadly unfixed. Adrift. A captive of my love for the abstract. A place where east is as west as west is east (excuse the cliché if my using it bothers you)…where the poles are both cold and weather patterns give rise to social power structure in its many forms…where roadside means the totality of that which is by the road, as in roadside attraction.

By way of example, the implication is that if a cube-shaped building is situated by the road, all its sides are roadside by virtue of the totality of the cube-shaped building’s form (Though, I know this is not what is meant by "roadside" according to an architectural perspective. According to an architectural perspective, the discriminatory act - euphemistically communicated as a selective act - is necessary for the sake of coherent discourse).

And there, in the most vacillating of fashions, my qualifications are made known. I am a prismatist. On one faceted plane or another, with lines wildly intersecting, I’d say we all are.

2007-07-22T08:18:00.001-07:00

Like the Pulse of Stars Projected on the Dome of a Planetarium
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

He was pleased that he met his goal of producing 5 drawings of the monument a day for every day of the current year. 1825 new examples of the structure in all variety of weather, shade of light, and relationship to passersby (transcribed onto the page using nothing more than charcoal and gouache) now existed. In year's past his yearly rate had been as a little as one drawing of the monument a day, to as many as 20 drawings a day – this rate was determined as arbitrarily as was the time of time of day he would step out into the world to make his drawings. And although the days he stepped out into were somewhat predictable thanks to thousands of years of human observation which had come to understand solar/lunar cycles and weather patterns in an increasingly accurate manner despite constant fluctuation, he still had to make decisions as to how he should respond to the daily conditions. For instance, if it were raining out, sometimes he would wait until the rain had stopped before he set up to draw. Other times he would draw in the rain, without an umbrella even, allowing for light smudges to occur when the rain was of the spitting sort. Still other times he would embrace a downpour with the page, the charcoal lines of the transcribed monument losing all shape, while the page itself tore through as he drew.

He had been drawing the monument in this ritualistic fashion since retiring 10 years ago from the architectural firm he helped found. He had none of the obligations associated with a wife, children or an immediate family and had accumulated a nest egg that was more ostrich than chicken, so this freed him of any feelings of irresponsibility that may have come with devoting his time to a ritual that provided no substantial income. For the most part, he found his act to be a perfectly fine thing to do with his time. However, sometimes when deeply uninspired or detached from his ritual, he thought he should devote his free time to a detailed study of mathematics. When faced with the internal oscillation that came from having such an episode of doubt, he generally concluded that either activity, because it would ultimately be disconnected from a larger social function, amounted to much the same thing. What that thing was, he couldn’t clearly define, but mostly he considered it to be a sort of biding of his time.

On this day, the last day of the current year, nothing of a dramatic nature happened to him. He did not die while putting the last of his 1825 drawings into his portfolio. The monument was not destroyed in his presence. A person did not come up to discuss the little known history of the monument having caused a political uproar when erected back in 1907. The heavens did not open up.

There were only billions of people breathing at the same moment...expanding and contracting...

2007-07-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

Cardinal
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

It wasn’t your fault. The bird simply failed to account for such things as automobiles traveling at 80 miles per hour, and the deathly pull of highway airstreams associated. How could it? How do we?

You presumed the bird to be a she flying back to its nest to feed its babies. I presumed it to be a he.

Neither of us knew how birds reproduced. I’ve since looked it up. Pretty straightforward…I’m surprised neither of us knew.

It’s something how the bird didn’t leave as much as a smear of bodily fluid on the windshield.

That you cried without the slightest hint of a maudlin show about having possibly ended the bird’s life, well that should raise it from any possible end.

It should.

2007-06-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/FlatLife

Let us first argue with the newspaper column commentary, which seeks to devalue our attempts by calling our thoughts weak and our artistry Kincadeian.

After we have satisfactorily parted ways with it in our mind, we can drift among words for the sheer pleasure of it. While doing so, we might even happen upon a few others who share our desire.

A little later however, and we will have to contend with the organizing principles of all those who really know. You know, those who know how to program the DVR and operate on hearts and speak in numbers the most efficient form of flattery. Don’t forget the mapmakers. Those guys haggle over borders better than I haggle over old metal lunch boxes at Bussey’s Flea Market off of I-35…well, that’s not saying much…I’ve never been very good at bargaining.

My point is we have to live in their world a little more than they do ours. This fact used to depress me a great deal. If anything has ever been successful at making me feel quite a lot like a parasitic life form, it’s been this thought. However, I’ve made peace with it and am thankful…for what, I do not know.

2007-06-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

On a Night Just Like Tonight
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

In the hour since leaving the bookstore I’ve come up with about 10 lines that I wanted this writing to start with. The least of which was the self-referential introduction.

But here we are…or at any rate here I am sharing a bit before calling it a night…starting with I in plain view of everyone.

On such an occasion as when the weight of my own insignificance attempts to shove me out into the world of online freelance photography at a chance at salvation, I bark back, “The world needs another freelance photographer like I need the new Justin Timberlake record!”

Shame on my local newspaper for tempting me into believing that my energies should be devoted to scraping for a buck on a site like iStockPhoto.com -this statement isn’t a strike against the site or those who use the site to scrap for a buck…let me be clear. I just know me and me knows that I’d prefer to learn how to engineer air filters that filter out air pollutants smaller than a common dog flea, before I tried to meet the demands of a client using my photographic talents.

Instead of trying my hand at online freelance photography, how about gaining some serious stem cell research like understanding that learns how to clone from the superficiality of skin cells, the most specialized of cell types. Hogwash, that’s just my envy trying on a lab coat and calling itself Richard.

How about discussing the plight of all those in history that have lost out to the strong arm of conquest?

Nah, that’s too broad a scope for an air filterer concerned with air pollutants smaller than a common dog flea.

The trees in a forest and red pencil lead buried in a sand dune.

Sorry Sorry…too personal…

2007-06-23T06:04:00.000-07:00

Mama What Does This Mean?
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

On Tuesday morning, while waiting for the bus to arrive, the 4-year-old girl pointed to the word, “fuck” scrawled in permanent marker on the side of a payphone casing and asked, “?Mama que quere decir esto?”

2007-06-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Father's Day
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

I was born on the same day as my Father. The sense that this caused some tension between us, though loaded with touchy feely Freudian rhetoric, is fully valid. For instance, consider that starting with my sixth birthday, I began receiving a note from my father via mail on or around my birthday that read,

"The fact that your birthday falls on my special day is a nuisance. See what you can do about it.

Love (?),

Pop"

Being young and incapable of reading the word nuisance, let alone understand it, I wasn't really bothered by the communication. However, once capable of understanding, I was full-blown crushed. Starting around 14 I began communicating back, though, I didn't use words. Mine was the let the air out of his Buick's tires and throw a bunch of nails at the end of the driveway sort of sentiment. Or the, oops I didn't mean to handcuff your hand to the bedpost and throw away the key while you were sleeping statement. I'm sure my mother was a bit confused as to why her husband and son carried on in the way that they did, but she was more concerned with… honestly I don't know what she was concerned with, but it surely wasn't us… she left us to sort out our own troubles.

My father being one who could take it just as much as he could dish it, never really got angry with me and my little retaliations. Yet, the notes continued. From 83' on, he just sent me a Xerox copy of the note from '82. He didn't even bother to whiteout 1982. When I moved out at 18, the notes stopped.

I received a note from my dad in the mail today, June 16th, the Saturday before our birthdays. The note reads, "You're my boy."

2007-05-31T15:51:00.000-07:00

If it were a Cycle I’d call it Stephen
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

After inspiration came the realization that my form of understanding was of the most superficial variety.

(I did not intend for the previous statement to flow forth as a fragment, yet it has. Thanks to the automated green underline edit indicator and the spelling and grammar tool offered by my word processing program, I am now aware of the fact that if the fragmented phrase is to exist as a grammatically sound string of words, I will need to add something to it. Without doing a small bit of research, I’m not sure what sort of something I need to add to satisfy the rules of English grammar…a main verb…a subject perhaps? I’m sure that if my word processing program were up-to-date, it would offer me a more specific solution. Since it is not and because I’ve decided that the phrase communicates what it needs to communicate sufficiently, the phrase will remain a fragment.)

After realization came perspiration in the form of education. Since I was soundly convinced that my particular sort of understanding was of the most superficial variety, I took steps to attempt to rebuild it through a university program. The problem here is that it is not only volition that plays a part in the successful rebuilding of a person's educational framework – aptitude too must be present. Where aptitude is absent, good teachers are more than adequate substitutes. If you find yourself constantly lacking a good teacher to help you along in your educational quest, a lack of aptitude is almost certainly your culprit…because really, rationality simply does not support the notion that one’s inadequacies as an educated being are solely the result of poor pedagogy. In my case, a lack of objective-based or concrete (as opposed to abstract) aptitude kept me from fully rebuilding. This deficiency forced me to haggle it out with the bulk of academia, which is really just a glorified version of my own superficial understanding. Sorry to say it, but I think it’s true. As an example, consider the fact that at most major universities, students are required to take general coursework for their degree, along with specific classes exclusive to their chosen major. Many of these general courses lack fixed processes by which to generate absolute outcomes. Math and sciences have this locked down, as do trade schools for that matter. Though to be fair, ask a mathematician or a scientist how absolute they think their outcomes and findings are, and a great many will humbly concede that flux is a far more superior feature of actuality than is fixed. I digress. From this prescribed pool of coursework, there will be quite a few required classes that the student has no interest in. More importantly, there will be quite a few required classes that the student has no true aptitude for. Yet, the student may learn how to superficially satisfy the objectives of the course(s) by properly regurgitating concepts (thrown about in lectures and readings during short bursts of educative frenzy called semesters) on tests and term papers. Taken cumulatively, this person’s true understanding of the world is a dust jacket blurb at best…at worst it’s the squawk of a parrot.

After perspiration came delusion. I thought my abilities were best suited for that commonly deemed unnecessary endeavor called human creativity.

After delusion came disillusionment. I charged the creative field with its subdivisions of sound and sight and intellect only to find that I had marginal talent at best. My bank account and a general lack of public interest in my work have substantiated this claim.

And now? Well, it’s hard to say. The wander that is my time has yet to provide a way. I continue to hope that it will.

2007-05-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

She Dreams of Clip Paths
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

She took the job right out of college — that was 10 years ago. As is the case with almost any job that a person has spent 10 years tending to, the requirements related to her work had become routine. 7 years in, this point provided quite a bit of satisfaction for her. She felt as though she had contributed to conquering a small amount of madness in the world. Just a mere 3 years later however, it seemed pointedly cruel that she could anticipate the requests which poured in every day by simply reading the subject line of an email, or at the very most, reading no more than the subject portion of the first sentence in the body of an email (maybe this was the result of her company’s mandate that employees attend at least one effective writing seminar each year…money well spent if that’s the case). Someone could stop by her cube and she knew what needed to be done before the person even got around to asking. She knew when the window washers were scheduled to hang from their wires to squeegee the windows. The copier rhythms might as well have been beats to played-out hip-hop jams. Typical of one who is subjected to the unrelentingly subtle knuckle tap on the chest that is corporatized existence, she felt trapped.

The work, editing and retouching images for advertisements, was for her, absurd. “I need the kid on the left in the Special Olympics ad to look a little less special…think you can make something like that happen?” Sadly, this was a common sort of absurdity reserved for an industry committed to idealizing the actual past the point of anything resembling reality. Though to be fair, what is termed reality is itself an idealized concept, and in fact, many of us, through exposure to television and magazines and online media, invite this sort of absurdity into our real lives on a daily basis, allowing it to inform our decisions and lifestyles, effectively dictating that which is real — Sanka anyone?

Yet, what made the requests all the more strange as a presence within her daily thought pattern, was that these revisionary desires meant to whet consumer appetite had been exposed as operating on a mechanistically routine level rivaling any assembly line Ford unleashed on the worker. The additions and omissions…the virtual surgeries and brushed candied flesh tones, really no different than hold the pickles…hold the lettuce.

She left work Friday a little later than usual, walking through the front door of her townhome at 9:45, ready to relax for the evening. A few hours later, while she was half-asleep on the couch, the continents repositioned themselves as a contiguous landmass underneath the ocean. The heating effects of the sun ceased immediately, and the ocean impossibly froze to its depth. Earth became Pluto of a new order, suspended as a mirror of the infinity of space.

2007-04-14T05:56:00.000-07:00

Missort
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

For the first time in 3 years, Timothy received an item of mail for John S. from the 14th floor. It was a regular-sized presorted solicitation letter from Business Week. Timothy reflexively trashed the mail item and went about sorting the rest of the mail received for the day.

Usually it was the other way around. Since moving from the 7th floor 3 years ago, Timothy began receiving phone calls from John S. (a nice elderly man kept on by his company as a gesture of employer loyalty…he once served a very different function for the company 30 years ago) informing him that he was mistakenly receiving mail appropriately addressed to the company Timothy worked for, complete with the company’s suite #, which was now 1800.

The reason this was occurring was that the company John S. worked for used to reside on the 18th floor, and after speaking to the postal clerk who services the office building, it was determined that an unidentified postal sorter at the downtown station was incorrectly sorting the mail in favor of the former tenant of 1800, not the current. Essentially, this impossible to identify postal sorter was taking assumptive proactive forwarding measures in an effort to provide superior customer service to John S’s company. Sadly, this unknown postal sorter wasn’t doing anyone a favor.

The postal clerk who services the office building went on to explain to both John S. and Timothy how one might go about correcting the error, and although John S. did attempt to follow the instructions the postal clerk who services the office building offered, the issue was never corrected to either party’s satisfaction.

Now fortunately for the company Timothy worked for, John S. was very good about forwarding the mail that the downtown postal sorter was incorrectly sorting. Oftentimes, the items forwarded by John S. were of much importance to the people to whom the mail was addressed. However, the majority of the mail was in fact JUNK…of worth only to the trash bin and the landfill.

In effect, instead of making the determination as to which items John S. received for Timothy’s company in error were garbage by using such identifying characteristics as a lack of First-Class postage or having presorted postage affixed to/metered on the envelope, John S. remained passive regarding the fate of the junk mail items, leaving the decision for Timothy, thus facilitating a system of non-thought, while simultaneously unnecessarily busying his own time as well as Timothy’s.

Now of course, on paper, John S. is correct to not make a decision to throw away Timothy’s company’s junk mail. After all, this mail is not addressed to the company John S. works for, and thus, it is not John S’s or John S’s company’s business to make a decision regarding the fate of the mail items in question. Yet, by not choosing to make the assertive decision to dispose of the junk mail, John S. is serving Timothy’s business by forwarding the mail to Timothy; though, it would be a better service to Timothy and Timothy’s company if John S. would just make the decision to dispose of the junk mail.

Timothy pondered the possibility that one day he too might be the subject of someone’s idea of obsolescence or ineptitude, and with this, completed distributing the mail to his fellow employees.

2007-03-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

Just This Side of Captivating
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

It’s Tuesday morning. I’ve come to work earlier than usual. The silence on the floor is suite-wide. I decide to use the quiet time to photograph my reflection on a window in the office. It’s still dark out. I’m an impressionistic visage of a ghost among the other reflections of paintings and chairs and tables and doors and walls and telephones. The blinds on the windows chop the reflections into measured sections, and a stream of car lights and traffic signals down below crowd the image from the opposing side of the glass. The exposure setting I use fails to capture clearly the scene my eyes see and my words attempt to describe. I adjust the exposure settings, snapping a few more pictures, but I am no more successful than I was initially. I move to another room and take a couple more photographs, which are passable, but I know I haven’t grabbed an image that represents the fullness of the visual impression. The Earth rotates, and the sun’s light appears, erasing the scene I was trying to document. I process the new day light, which is traveling 186,000 miles per second, yet I could not transcribe the ghostly reality of my early morning onto photographic technology in a captivating manner.

2007-02-08T05:01:00.000-08:00

Sunrise Behind the Dusk of Your Nerve
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Let's not write the reason or wrong the right
Or say something regrettable at the party tonight
Entertain the notion that maybe your best has not yet occurred
This as a means to make it to another sunrise behind the dusk of your nerve
Behind the dusk of my nerve?
Yes, behind the dusk of your nerve
But that doesn't mean a thing!
True, they are only words

2007-02-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

A Young Man’s Song
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

A young man with a set of headphones on passed him in the crosswalk singing a song out loud. He was unfamiliar with the song, but in that brief moment, he was taken. It was early morning. The Earth had not yet made its’ Sun revealing rotation, so it was darkness splashed with some traffic light that set the scene. A few minutes later and this would all change. At his old age, this phenomenon had not ceased to amaze. “Oh what is that song the young man was singing?” He thought. “Maybe I should turn around and catch up with him, tap him on the shoulder and ask, ‘Excuse me, but I was taken by the melody and words I heard you singing in the crosswalk. Would you mind telling me the name of the song?’” He would never actually do this however. Not because he was too timid, but because he knew that what he found to be so alluring was not the song. It was the youthful vitality the young man displayed through the act of singing along to a song - a song he'd never know - that stirred him.

2007-01-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

But a Slap in the Face
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Being able to identify a problem is not enough. One must also know how to correct the identified problem or else be subject to that problem.

For illustrative purposes, take a malfunctioning stapler. If one would like to bring the stapler back to the land of the functioning, then one must first identify why the stapler is malfunctioning. The clearest way to do this is to compare the malfunctioning stapler to a functioning stapler. By comparing and contrasting the mechanics of each stapler, one may be able to reach an understanding as to why the malfunctioning stapler is acting the way that it is. Yet, reaching this point is not enough to be freed from the problem. One must also be able to correct the problem of the malfunctioning stapler concretely.

If one lacks this ability to correct the concrete problem, do they not make the sound of one hand clapping?

2006-12-29T05:13:00.000-08:00

While Waiting
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Not a particularly original utterance in the history of understanding,
but still, let it be said...
The lack of true permanence defines everything

2006-12-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

In the Way
By Sean Ripple
www.Flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Being dismissive of one's sincere attempts to root out their own insincerity by claiming that in doing so, the person is being insincere, is nothing but cruelty.

2006-11-30T20:25:00.000-08:00

Triangulation
By Sean Ripple

Leaving work for the day, Stephen stopped to stare at the architectural model for the building housed in a plastic protective case which resides on the building's bottommost floor. From the understanding that he performs his daily work functions within an architect's (more likely a team of architects') conception of space, he experienced inexpressible reality.

2006-11-16T05:21:00.000-08:00

White Shadow
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

As she drifted from the uninteresting party conversation, she noticed a record cover leaning by one of the stereo speakers. The cover was a bust portrait black and white photograph of Peter Gabriel, his hands raised up in front of him in a strained manner. 10 white jagged trails (one trail for each finger) were added to the photograph to create a sense of scratching through the surface. Still looking at the cover, a mental image of Peter Gabriel coughing while sitting at a large varnished wood table in dim light in his home flickered. Then, while taking a sip of her drink, she imagined him rising from his seat and calling out for someone in another room.

“…And it allows me to watch the programs I’m interested in on my schedule, not the broadcaster's. It’s really great.”
“Yeah, sounds like it. Maybe I should finally join the ranks.”

Peter called out for her again, hoping this time she would hear him, but she had already drifted back to the party.

2006-11-09T20:57:00.000-08:00

But was Given Less
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

contemplating the point
between takes
the sad actor

older now

wants not to kiss
those places
as work
for money

but all he has is this work
and because of this work,
he has actualized a life
that must be sustained
by taking these sorry parts
or else depart in river rhythm

sure, in his youth
kissing his beautiful peers
in those places was a reward,
but as his age moves on
the reward is no longer

he had hoped for more

2006-11-02T20:40:00.000-08:00

Small Unit Broadcasting Network
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Two men who were the sum total of a small unit broadcasting network stood off from the crowd discussing what they had accomplished.

"It amazes me to know that without any training or background in the field, I've become quite the television man."
"Well, to say that I'm not a bit bitter about that fact would be about as dishonest as our programming."
"Ha hee heee ha.. But seriously, it really is simply a competition for perspective isn't it?"
"The battling networks...of which we are only one."
"True."
"Surprised you're winning this one?"
"Not really...I just wonder how long I'll have their favor."
"A lot longer than you would think...if you're selling right."

2006-10-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

Not Adverse to Learning, but Always Misstepping
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

The misuse of a word on a test that didn’t make the grade I had hoped for was called out by my professor during a meeting.
The word was concise.
“Did you mean precise?” she asked.
I did actually. Isn’t that a kick in the shin? Nevermind the irony.
Also, I took hits for my passive voice and vague language. She told me that the name of the game is to use language which identifies the actor and is precise (there’s that word again).

2006-10-13T14:48:00.000-07:00

A Shift in Seasons
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Automated solution conceptions for complex problems
The trees sway gently
Educative severance and the retraining of human labor
A slight drop in temperature
Workers displaced by numerical control systems suffering because of the unmitigated rule of the bottom line of business
Another brown leaf in the street
A redistribution of wealth might occur if automation fulfills the requirements of industry
A shift in seasons

2006-10-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

Furniture
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

By not having the proper tools or attention span for the construction directions and having too many other plans today in addition to the building of this out-of-the-box chain store hutch, I'm typically unprepared for a task I've decided to commit myself to for a portion of my day.

After finishing screwing in one side of a drawer connecting to the drawer backplate that went not that well, all the while thinking about wanting to study synthetic biology-this when I can't even handle a simple designed-for-lowest-common-denominator-furniture-construction, I realized the problem was not what, but how.

How to solve the simple problem that isn't as simple as I would like it to be?

First, I should travel to a store and buy a proper tool set. I wonder what that might be...a proper tool set? Oh ridiculous! Ask someone at the store what tool set is recommended for a first time tool set buyer. Nothing too anything in any one direction...as moderate as they come. I'm sure the store sells ten to twenty a day...at least on a good day. Handle buying the tool set, and then call off all other plans outside of solving this one simple problem that isn't as simple as you would like it to be. Have a beer or a glass of wine while you read the construction directions and follow out your own intuitive leanings as to how you should put the hutch together. Let the tools make sense in your hand, as it's most likely that you'll struggle a little when trying to use them. Don't let this bother you. Pep talk yourself through it like you're doing now and don't feel rushed or ashamed of the fact that you're pep talking yourself. Imagine that you're on a date with this little project. Enjoy making sense of the mess. Enjoy working through it. And most importantly, remember that this task will not go smoothly until you yield to its requirements and relax the need to get past it.

2006-09-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

Turning Away From the Base of a Stone Figure
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

The ruin is the monument?

Or does the ruin come about from a desire to erect a monument? The effort to move the ideal past points of conflict becoming more tense...more violent, as a dominance struggles to assert itself.

Could it be that the mask of idealism is what the ruin hides behind?

Sure
Of course
Certainly,
We all find ruin in our lives.
The ruin comes for our mortal flesh even.
Without any doubt, we know that the ruin is a pervasive force.

Yet, so is the opposite of ruin. Watch the ivy climb the walls as a monument to the non-ruin.
Feel the doctor slap your bottom as a new born, not yet knowing what it is to directly partake in the breathing of this atmosphere.
The cellular concert of person, a living example of that which is opposite to an eventual end.

There is also a perpetual beginning...

But what of the finite nature of resource?
What of the consuming force of non-ruin being ruin?
What of the cellular concert of person being a great example of viciousness and greed?

The preceding questions are a monument to those who need a mask of idealism to portray their being.

Those who lack the ability to give back to what they take.

Lacking the ability to reinvigorate a life not of stone and rubble and etching and pupil-less eye and without arm woman and antiquated historical preference and "this is how it is" assertion and "remember what could have been/what was" nostalgia and "to be governed along these lines" ruling and every 10 year broadcasts of "that tragic moment that cannot be forgotten" and walls maintained to preserve a death and religiosity used as an installment of fear of that death and a religiosity used as a justification for the death of others.

The monument is not only the end or the ruin.
Though, lamenting the fact that there is ruin is understandable.
The monument is not only the end or the ruin.

Let us not be reminded by the failure of being perpetuated by the ruin.
Let us be reminded by the ongoing being that considers not its end, but its perpetual nature

...unashamed and aware...

2006-08-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

Ours as a Lifetime
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife/

One should not turn to look back at the distance traveled a few steps upward from the bottommost portion of the valley. It was said by a man quoted in a book many use as a way to calm their fear of ending to "Remember Lot's wife." I do not remember the man's name who was quoted nor do I remember the context or book in which it is written, but I do remember that in the story referenced, Lot's wife turned to look back at a city going to ruin and turned to a pillar of salt. Yet, who can definitively answer what a pillar of salt is meant to signify?

It was spoken and has been relayed through translation, but the search is ours as a lifetime.

2006-05-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

Simultaneously Subjective
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

There is no agreement, wouldn't you say, in how to say that which is to be understood.

However, there are recurrences of theme and similarly employed strategies stratified throughout this human expression. A small amount of understanding can be spoken diversely in every person who is or has been. For example take, "Crying may be an evolutionary response to undesired or adverse environmental situations for the increased fitness of human ancestry" and compare to "She recognized the pattern immediately and decided to quiet it by crying." These two quotations are addressing a similar root (the survival instinct as manifested through the act of crying) --but go about making claim in differentiated ways.

The difference in the way in which the claim is constructed is based mostly on precepts of discipline acquired through volitional acceptance. Of course, I am not addressing actual divisions in understanding, because that is a dissimilar topic. I am only addressing that which may be considered unified or common or of the same mind.

Through this, universality would appear to be simultaneously subjective...

2006-05-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

Focus This Essence
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

In the full bloom of shame weakness considers itself

Now
How to resurrect
Now
How to proceed

Of practicality or abstraction
Which might be more useful?

Of effort or silence
Which can distract more effectively?

Focus this essence on that which is unrelated to shame

It can be done

2006-04-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

Unfolded
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

The unintended unearthing of a past experience contained in the fold of memory is a common occurrence. Often the result of some spark of external stimuli like watching a rerun of a television program, this common occurrence is quite a wonderful example of the mystery. The recalling of this sort of memory being different in nature to that of bringing back to mind buried postulates, logic tables and other abstractions of varying type in that it is more a doorway to a room than the scratch paper of compulsion. Relived is the past tense of a word used to signify the occurrence. However, with this signification there is a push to negate the mystery.

The actual experience of the common occurrence of reliving a memory rents the veil of the attempted negation.

So upon our death (the great renter of veils) does our coiled perceiver figuratively unfold to reveal itself as one strip of uniquely obtained experience...to be eternally manifested?

2006-04-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

On Unfinished Overpass Arcs
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

There are men who take orders from men who are instructed by men who study how to speak in highway engineer. These men translate the abstractions of less willingly able-bodied men into physical expression. On unfinished overpass arcs of concrete and tar and wrought iron, these men hang and sweat the fluids of resignation. They do not hide behind college-educated manipulation, but take the curse of work upon their flesh. Not out of nobility but of necessity do these men submit to the whims of transportational trend. And there is a lot of us who travel their work with not a single second of appreciation. These men returning not back to the dust of the earth, but to the tar.

2006-04-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

Promotional Echo
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

A few weeks back I was online doing those aimless things I do online. In the living room, the television was on. While scrolling through some page...I really can't remember what page it was...an ad for a Discovery Channel program entitled, "Survivor Man" popped up on my screen. Simultaneously, while reading the ad, I could faintly hear it broadcasting on the television in the other room. It took a moment to register this, but once I did, it struck deep. The promotional echo was like a scratch on a compact disc. Not a scratch that ruins the entirety of the album, but one that forces you to skip the song.

2006-04-01T06:49:00.000-08:00

Over Any Fence
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Instead of working to commodify your virtual creations, why not embrace the arc that has made itself apparent through the open-source? The virtual commune being a place to exhibit and share the ideas you have worked on with anyone who would like to partake.

As opposed to securing copyrights (a now evident square peg to the elliptical nature of appetite) why not relinquish the right to copy the idea or image or work, allowing it to move where it would like, with nothing more than your name and web address attached for identification?

One answer among many to the question, “why not?” is that without a legal mechanism in place, the image or idea or work can be adopted as someone else’s with little consequence suffered by the person who decides to take the information good and make it his/her own. This is certainly an undesired outcome.

However, my understanding is that a thief will always steal. A deterrent only discourages specific cases. If a thief's desire is strong enough, in most instances, it will lead him over any fence that surrounds the object of desire.

If you give away something that you’ve created, and a thief takes it and makes it his own, what should your response be?

How about giving away more than the thief cares to take? Brand loyalty being paid to the one who continues to create that which he/she alone can call into being.

Let the thief take your scraps and let those who choose to accept your gift, feast.

2006-03-27T15:43:00.000-08:00

Allowed in These Moments
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

This writing is as much a part of me as my epidermal layer is in the superficial and vascular is in the fundamental. Plainly, this writing is who I am in a moment where I can hear the breeze through the door to the outside and where the device by which I record my being hums and where my love lies sleeping in a different room. I am allowed in these moments to do that which I am doing without being monitored... knowing that this writing is the property of no one.

2006-03-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

All Great Things
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

“A product this beneficial will bring the general populace into great harmony! How does it work again?” Hidden behind both the Mayor’s statement and question was a terrible fear. This invention came from the mind of a 5-year-old child. Genius or not, he felt that a child should not be calling evolution — technological, sociological, psychological, physiological or philosophical — into being. His opinion was that it was the duty of the elder generation to control the ebb and flow of progress. What did youth know about the repercussions of its decisions?

The child’s representative had this response to the Mayor’s question, “You inflate the rubberized pocket with helium and let it hover above you.”

2006-03-21T06:43:00.000-08:00

We Here
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

We'll take a dramatization over theoretical astronomy. We'll take pomp while others take the circumstantial. We'll love as if these things were important, while others analyze the characteristics of distant planets provided by data sheets given by satellites. We'll create cave paintings while others make fuel from water. We'll huddle in ignorance while others design our holding cells.

We are grateful for this existence of computation holding it all together. We don't care a thing for the inner workings of its function however. We talk in drunken code while others construct a language of razor edge. We will come to an end and others will take up the charge. The lines running parallel. The lines some sort of delight.

When detached from the juice of all things there is only a faint beat, and it is a joyous thing to know that what life is transcends all but a slight understanding.

2006-03-19T05:33:00.000-08:00

New U
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

In the fall of 2008, 12 high school seniors decided to form an educational collective. Twice a week they would commit to studying a few subjects of mutual interest, using an online encyclopedia which offered a self-study program that had been developed a year prior.

The 12 seniors quickly discovered that the online encyclopedia offered much in the way of course description, but did not offer thorough exposition for the majority of the courses outlined. Undetered, they chose 6 subjects (that had a facilitator at the helm) to study over a 5 month period.

The 12 seniors determined a facilitator's merit by examining his/her credentials, reading his/her student rating, which was provided by the online encyclopedia and by cross-referencing the supporting reading material required by the facilitators, to customer rating feedback provided by online bookstores.

In all but 1 case, the facilitator claimed to be a professor in the subject they were facilitating. Of those who claimed to be a professor, 5 of them did not give their true name or university affiliation. Of the 5 that did not give their true name or University affiliation, only 1 person was not an actual professor. The 1 person that was not a professor, but who claimed to be, was in fact, a celebrated child prodigy in the field of biology. He facilitated the class for much of the same reasons a child might decide to join a rock band...out of a desire to let free the larger sense of life not found within the rigidity of academic endeavor. The 1 facilitator that did not claim to be a professor was actually quite knowledgeable in his area, but simply lacked the skills needed to convey his knowledge clearly.

Initially, because the majority of the facilitators did not provide their true name or university affiliation, the only substantiating factor that the knowledge the 12 gained was accurate or credible, was the knowledge itself. It is easy to see the difficulty the 12 must have had proving that the understanding they had acquired was to be trusted, as the essence of knowledge is more a flame than concrete. This is true even in subjects where the assumption is that the concepts are unbending.

In response to the growing lobby in favor of the 12 senior's achievement, an SAT based test on the subjects the 12 had taken was devised to evaluate whether the knowledge they were equipped with by the online encyclopedia was credible and accurate. All 12 scored at a mastery level.

Over time, there developed a contingent of educators who did not see the 12 senior's self-education initiative as a threat, but instead saw it as a new model by which to instruct other students who possessed a similar drive. These educators facilitated educational collectives outside state funded school systems.

Our university is comprised of only these students.

2006-03-17T07:03:00.000-08:00

A New Definition
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

A new definition of greedy: I give a great deal so that I will get more in return.

2006-03-16T06:33:00.000-08:00

Without Care of End
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Four for (4) or For four (4) months, a month being the period during which the moon passes once through its phases, equal to about 30 days or 4 weeks, Gentelwoman Chardra spent all her freetime drafting, sketching, drawing and doodling the terminal part of the human arm, consisting of the wrist, palm, four (4) fingers and thumb, also known as the human hand or simply the hand. Gentelwoman Chardra consulted drawing and medical books and used her own hand as a hand model.

How many mini depictions of Gentlewoman Chadra's hand at drawing hands had accumulated over the fore, I mean four (4) months? Close 2 two too to 3200 pages. Not all the pages contained just one depiction of a hand. Some pages contained 15 while others contained 11. Others 19...still others 23. Actually, there was only one page that contained only 1 drawing of a hand. It was the 3rd page Gentlewoman Chardra did.

These 4 or four or fore or for months of drawing hands did not bring Gentlewoman Chardra to a masterly skill level of hand drawing. The fact is, most of the drawings were crap. However, her efforts are remembered here in this writing as part of an exhibit on doing without care of end.

2006-03-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

Village of Children
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

On January 11 2009, United States Army General E.M. Calton was awarded two medals by the U.S. Government honoring his services in the Galbeck War. Photographers took pictures to document the event; news cameras captured clips of the medals being placed around his neck; journalists wrote stories about the ceremony.

Two days later, General Calton, now simply "Edwin," decided to go on a long walk around his neighborhood. It was snowing in a typically brutal way for mid-January in Alexandria, Virginia. He paid no mind. Curiously enough, neither did his wife. Edwin walked for an hour before he broke from the residential streets that labyrinthed about the secluded housing development. Each step off the road became quieter, the thin glaze of ice over the snow breaking softly with each step. He stopped in the thick of the forest and began to disrobe, his 55-year-old frame still exercised and firm. Thirty-seven minutes passed before the cold penetrated. Its first and only entry point was a thought signaling that his body was suffering. He allowed the thought to repeat itself without taking action. He was demanding that it reveal more, that it betray its source, admit its purpose.

Before Edwin died three days later from hypothermia, a fantastical mode of thought took over him. It started with a pillar of fire in the center of a village of children who spoke the word of God with such joy, as he had never heard. They called to Edwin, asking if he had kissed life with destruction. He wanted to lie by saying "No," but before he did, tears fell from his eyes to the earth and the pillar of fire spoke.

2006-03-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

Commitments and Contingencies
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

In the typical course of enterprise, the Company is subject to dictates, mandates, lawsuits and other claims, including regulations related to mutual connection based on financial interest. Such matters yield many outcomes that cannot be predicted with any amount of assuredness. As a result, management is unable to state the total amount of financial risk the Company faces.

Sorry. We wish you the best.

2006-03-12T07:50:00.000-08:00

Roof of the Mouth
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

"Wild-eyed...that's exactly what it was. He crossed from the turning lane directly into the front end of my 45-m.p.h.-moving vehicle. That wild-eyed desperation aimed directly at me. His teeth were gnashing. It wasn't a misjudgment of rate of approach; I was used like a bullet to the roof of the mouth. You talk about against your will."

"But he's not dead. He's going to live. Don't you take some comfort in that?"

"Yeah, I do. What I'm struggling with though — and forgive me, I do realize how ridiculous this is — is an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. This man had wanted me to help him end his suffering, and I failed him. It's as if I live in an aspect of the manifestation of his problem, which is his inability to find release from his suffering. That gaze, that pupil-less and without iris Greco-Roman statue glazed-over glaze, is the most convincing thing I have ever witnessed."

2006-03-11T07:04:00.000-08:00

2006
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

I hate the automated
And the bloom of a child from some such past life

For the flesh of discouragement
You seem much like a castle or empire of unbending opinion

2006-03-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

Transient Bursts or Flash Tag
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

He took 6 months to learn how to create flash movies in the flash authoring environment. He was inspired by the movie Style War's depiction of the early graffiti scene in New York City. The idea seemed natural to him that floating ads could function in a similar way to that of a subway train. The author could tag the floating ad and it could "travel" to whomever might be confronted with the advertisement. By subverting the original purpose of the advertisement, which he felt was to idealize qualities not inherently present within an object or service itself, he created a new forum where he could communicate his identity.

27 years after introducing the practice, it is hard to find a commercial site on the internet that has not been tagged in such a manner. Special T.V. programs, theatrical documentaries and major motion picture biopics are devoted to artists who were involved with the early movement. Current artists are given major gallery exhibitions which are curated by major corporations. Their pieces sell for millions (in the upwards of 200) of dollars. Books are published and sold in chain stores. Museums and universities house collections of significant artists associated with the movement. The names and histories of the artists have been incorporated into art history lessons.

2006-03-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

Zoned Ideas
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

A cease and desist order came in the mail today. Surprising that such matters are still handled in this way. It read:

You are not authorized to continue posting the content contained on your site. To publish, broadcast, post, or print the ideas contained on your site, you must be in possession of a United States L, Q, or R Passport. It has been discovered by the Federal Communications Commission that you, Stewart Mellston Jr., do not have a United States L, Q, or R Passport issued in your name.

Failure to cease the posting of unauthorized intellectual material may result in imprisonment (maximum penalty 7 years) under Federal Media Sovereignty Laws.

2006-03-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

Ourselves a City
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

The filmmaker conceived the idea for his next project while standing in line waiting to pay admission to go up an elevator of the Eiffel Tower. It was to be a short-film that examined the confusion of language — the division of language by God as illustrated by the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. The film would use one long shot to showcase 3 duets taken from the middle point of their trajectory into an unknown location (filmed from an elevated perspective), giving the audience an unresolved effect, thereby creating confusion. The sense of mystery could pressure the individual involved in viewing the film to discern what the point of each conversation was. The 1st duet would be spiritually bankrupt businessmen who work for a very powerful investment company that is housed within the unknown location, representing the failure of religion to rehabilitate man. The 2nd duet would be two highly intelligent teenage boys bent on destroying the unknown location because of their hatred for the company that the spiritually bankrupt men work for, representing the failure of the soul's ability to work towards peace. The 3rd duet would be xenotransplantation research scientists who have just ended an affair, reviewing notes on a presentation they are about to give to the board of directors of the investment company the two spiritually bankrupt men work for, representing the body's failure to keep man happy. Although the filmmaker had a deliberate sense of what each conversation represented, he preferred the idea of obscuring so that confusion could birth an interactive interpretation of these archetypes. The film would end with a slow zoom out from the action, revealing the insignificance of all the interactions that had transpired. After the camera pulled wide, it would zoom out on an
endlessly blue sky.

After riding the second floor elevator up, the filmmaker reached the top of the tower and took in the “City of Light” like a breath, exhaling with a great feeling of privilege, for he understood that to construct worlds so effortlessly was a gift. He also felt privileged because he had a great financial force backing him and his ideas. He no longer had to struggle to bring green into his worlds; it came as Spring, fresh and unyielding. “Why?” he thought. “What boundary have I surpassed? What do I see? Is my responsibility greater than my ability to understand it?”

In the vertigo of view and questions, a man asked the filmmaker for the time in French. "I don't understand" was the filmmaker's response.

2006-03-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Nothing So Sweetly
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

It begins like this...just this...and as it shifts, it does not act in the way that it began. How did it begin again? Oh right, like this...

A jumble

Vines
Insects larger than a hand
Lots of rain
A few other things

A Jungle

Upton Sinclair

There is some notion that this act is of no use

But what act is?
But what things are?

Warm forks?
or
Pints of cold cream?
or
Job security?
or
Surveillance rooms?

The band plays on, and the painting is all wrong

But oh this life of nothing so sweetly can take a few shots

2006-02-27T10:00:00.000-08:00

(This) Sort of FoolSpeak
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

I remember when a dream was less than a dream. It was called reality in that time. The dream's floating logic was effectively contained. It was made impotent by the division of labor; clinched in the teeth of the slaves devoted to maintaining the systemic order established by the enemy of the dream.

The very difficult to refute rhetoric made known by reality was that (this) sort of fool speak (this) kind of gibberish (this) sort of being — the being of the dream — was an unattainable state. Outside of being unattainable, it was thought to be a state of little importance or consequence. Because this was the prevailing view, no one cared to dream. That is, no one found value in committing to the act of dreaming. Whether awake or asleep.

Now, you have the benefit of seeing a great danger in this way, but at the time, no such consideration had been made. Had it not been for the few from Connecticut — their story we all know well — the crushing spirit of reality would still draw our lines and dig our graves.

Every so often, I'm ashamed to admit, I find myself tempted by the constructs that reality offers. It's hard to resist rigidity, safety, homogeny and agreed-upon procedure.

Contained within reality is a hope for perfection. This is to be admired, but at the hands of man, perfection almost always becomes a fortress or weapon, and the dream that is this life becomes the forsaken or murdered.

2006-02-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

Simple Dwellings of Decompression
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

Deep within the cityscape’s epicenter, that being the heart of each individual who populates the bustle, lives an ineffable motivation to push forward, to exist, to influence, to unify, to divide and so on. It is from this place that we built our company, Totemism Inc., which sought to manufacture our patented, Simple Dwellings of Decompression. We leased prime downtown real estate (a slumping economy being an ally in this case) in an effort to position ourselves amongst our target market, the businessperson. Our reason for selecting this market was simple: We wanted to soften business’ influence over the topography of our communities, giving less space to the strong arm of greed and more to those who wanted less.

Obviously, our intentions were far too problematic to come to fruition. We closed shop yesterday.

2006-02-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

In a Refrain
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

What makes itself known in a refrain is not understanding, but is felt. As these words stream, I recognize a similar process in action.
To be unbound and live practically. To not need knowledge of hierarchical positioning. To sing as amongst a flock of birds.

Idealism is an ignorant fellow, unaware of such things as tetrahedrons (a solid figure with four triangular faces). Idealism endangers sentiment by not equipping it with the same sense evident in cold hard geometric abstraction.

Is this because sentimentalism is not meant to be a prolonged experiential state?

As drunkenly blissful as it might be to exit the concrete realm of existence through a runway of tender feeling, it is too spiritual an application for the everyday. This is not to say it has no place. This is to say live unbound but practically. Seek weight to contrast your weightlessness.

And if a blueprint of spiritual significance comes into your care...be careful with it.

2006-02-24T09:14:00.000-08:00

And Multiply
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

I was born of the passion between two people. One man………one woman. Not like some, who were born out of non-intention. You know, the, “I don’t want to wear one tonight” kind of thing. I’m fortunate. I’m an expression of desire. I was planned.

What is it that I have to offer? Who will help me extend the manifestation? It will most likely take a great deal of convincing. Although, my parents do speak of the instantaneous feeling that indicated to them that they were meant to be. Hmmm……..that’s pretty confident. I can only hope.

What if it’s up to me to phase out an unnecessary tangent? Like Latin, but less. A language so limp even liars laug……….'my……….taking quite a few liberties with the alliterative device don’t you think………..give people a little room.' Anyway, my point is, what if I’m the complete sum of q and r’s desire?

2006-02-23T16:41:00.000-08:00

The Ascending Incurve of Desirability
By Sean Ripple
www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife

"Beautiful!" said Stephen as he got out of the car. "You never would have known that this used to be a housing project."
"Too bad that this whole city knows that this used to be a housing project."
"You know, Grant, with those sorts of remarks, I would think I'm paying you to piss me off."
"You're going to throw out the paying me thing again are you? How tacky. I'm not subject to your dominion or whatever curious turn of phrase your delusionary idea about your status is built upon. I gave you a hand with this project because you asked me to."
"What's your problem?"
"Do you see that white flag over there?"
"Yeah."
"Do you see that one over there?"
"Yeah."
"And that one?"
"Yeah, get to the point, Grant."
"What do you think people are trying to say with those flags?"
"I see, I'm supposed to be made to feel like a war monger because I came in to rejuvenate this area when the government abandoned it. I decided, upon seeing the first one of those flags 4 months ago, that I would not allow that rhetoric to diminish my efforts. I mean really, how could I just stop construction on a 35-million-dollar project because someone decided to get all John Lennon in response to it?"
"Wow, Stephen...................... It's crazy how insensitive you are to these people. A lot of them are being displaced almost instantaneously because of this development, and...."

From across the street, a largish rock came hurling with deathly intent, striking Grant square on his right-side temple. It hurt to be sure, but mercy prevailed, Grant being not much more than startled at the occurrence. With a voice unhinged from all sense of restraint and commercialized grandiose emotion, Grant yelled, "I DESERVED THAT!"