Your Father's the light within all that you see

He fills up the ponds as He empties the clouds
Holds without hands and He speaks without sounds
He provides us with the cow's waste and coconuts to eat
Giving one that nice salt taste, and the other its sweet

Sends the black carriage the day death shows its face
Thinning our numbers with kindness and grace
And just as a flower and its fragrance are one
So must each of you and your Father become

-mewithoutYou
King Beetle on a Coconut Estate

Interrupting Moon at Five A-M

The urgent moon awoke me, wide and full, wide and full
The cold bright moon awoke me wide and full
Fin'lly that entire stretch from my lungs to my mouth
Is an indian drum, dry, stretched o'r too much emptiness
Percuss, percuss, thumps throat on hollow chest

The heart beats not at all, must have forgot, I don't recall
The heartbeat doesn't beat, I don't recall
I look into the void where the moon-burn was before
The dusty lime-like drink is only warmed up by the heat
By radiator-wet forehead and feet

Wet drizzle, dry bed, unsettled place to rest my head
Unsettled, restless place to rest my head
Its coolness has been robbed away by discontent dark grey
Its cotton changed to hot rough wool on a sore moon-burned cheek
Throbbing globe, aching sphere, dull refuge keep

forward motion?

I would like very much to inform you all that I've spent the week coming up with something new to post here but time has been dedicated to porch sitting and quality time with friends and family. Instead my day will be used as an opportunity to give a progress report...

The seven songs listed in a previous post have undergone some changes. "His Name was James" has been extended from a little, two part progression to a finger picked introduction to be followed by a few extra sections. On the new additions some of my talented friends will be accompanying me and contributing new ideas to improve upon the original concept. Aside from the expansion on this particular song lyrics have been finished for "Evergreens" and "Death Egg". I'd also like to take this space to say that the latter is actually an instrumental blues song that David and I wrote together and the recorded version that's being worked on is simply going to be a stripped down version rearranged for a single guitar. The other songs are receiving finishing touches and I've given myself a deadline of mid-May to complete the project.

Sorry for the brevity and lack of content.

I work, I sit, I pass time shuffling around the pillar island, drinking half glasses of water, and thumbing through hair. While my hand wears a print on my head, between awake and asleep, my ears pique. I'm hearing a young girl stating complaints and searching for solace from a voice on the other end of the phone. I'm hearing more than that though.

I'm hearing an attempt to convince herself that the current situation isn't her fault. She lists grievances that have been leveled against her in exaggerated tones and facial expressions. A phantom in her own stories, you hear nothing of her part. What is in her mind are the extremely unecessary sacrifices she made in hopes of justifying her love. A troubled boy enters her life with similar interests and she jumps. Leaving friends and home, traveling with him to a town in which she doesn't want to live. The bigger the inconvenience, the more the pain, the stronger she is convinced of their relationship. Months pass with his constant refusal of seeking employment, which results in an failure to pay rent. Now, faced with tough decisions, she is at a loss. As a substitute for making a decision, she complains, denying her role in this state of affairs. That's where she is, roughly fifteen feet away, back-tracking through a year's complications.

I open my eyes and look over my left shoulder. At the back of the restaurant a man stressfully sifts through checks with forgotten birth dates and missing driver's license numbers. More years are piled on his face than he has lived. But I am not seeing just my boss.

I'm seeing the formerly successful member of the european lumber industry. A business his father built, and he inherited, honoring his family's name. And then the war. People fleeing homes, soldiers forcing them from their vehicles along crowded highways. I see a small family, walking back after its conclusion, in hopes of some remaining familiarity. They find their house burned to the ground. Two growing young boys and a father wondering how he will provide for them. His relatives having been doing well in the states, and it seems the most logical plan. After spending a few years in the city, although his restaurant is providing more than sufficiently, he cannot supress his country roots. They move to a small town and set up shop, but italian is not in high demand in such a rural and uncultured area. He makes enough, but with a growing family and slowing economy, only enough. Close margins force an added attention to detail, and the lines continue stacking upon his brow as he scans the checks.

I scratch my stubble and wonder if there are any tables at the moment. My question is answered by two hefty women, one chattering between gulps of her chicken alfredo and the other nodding as she inhales her lasagna. But I see beyond their lunch.

I see them sitting on benches outside of outlet malls, multiple bags from beall's and old navy stationed by their ankles. As they are heading back into town they see a billboard for a restaurant they have never heard of. Pulling in, they notice a woman descending the steps of the courthouse, and comment on her wardrobe or standing in the community. They briefly examine the menu, ordering the only items they know how to pronounce. The clinking of their furiously shoveling silverware conducts the gossip.

Time is inching by. I'm feeling more than just seconds slipping by. I'm realizing that it is from these seemingly endless variables that one single moment is comprised.

The Watch-Spring Metronomadic

Ardent hushed arbors, and
Gardens echo approachers
Sellers of squash seeds and thymes
Trollers of dirt roads to bleach-whitened she-town
Now pluck, tune and strum her taut laundry lines
Till she resonates out in her groves, dells and downs
Knock loose that dust, that fresh cedar smell
Smooth her neck with the cup of your palm, then
Resonate, ciliate the sense on our drums,
Pass o'er her pastures, you fingers and thumbs,
Bootleathern, healers, brushers of stealth-strings
Sneak to her, rescue from chilled retinue
Disquiet her nerve-rooted enamel houses
Her cold posts, winter lamps, and choral white porches
Vibrate those ivories, from placards to gums, and,
Picking out fruit-flowers of things yet to come,
Sing warm songs from elbows, given words by our sons
And dance future daughters in one-two's and three-fours!
'Nowned coolness 'verberates dappled by sun
While we major in C-sharp, three-octave chores
And a quiet, old B-minor-flat nods and hums

Gabriel Ballard, 3/19/2010

The Shifting of Tides

An uproar of laughter and good, though drunken, cheer passed through walls not fit for privacy. Past a door marked "B" there was silence. The old man who inhabited the cramped space behind sat on a leather couch, cracked with time, and stared with a certain emptiness out of the facing window with shutters thrown open. The walls were wanting of a new coat and peeled in an unsightly fashion. A chip of ancient paint fluttered from the wall and drifted across the room, settling on the knee of the elderly man's pressed pants.

He glanced down, plucked the little chip between his gnarled index and thumb, and glanced meaningfully at it. His head cocked ever so slightly to the left as he examined the chip, consciously frowning as he deposited it into an empty, glass ashtray. Death crossed his mind for the first time since his formidable years in the service of an ex-lover's father who had employed him during his reckless twenty-somethings. In the midst of emotional upheaval brought on by dissipation of this affair and loss of work he left the country, fled to Spain, and had ever since dwelt on an overly-romanticised loss of love in the leaky, decrepit apartment in Madrid. Every day for forty years he had rifled through old photographs of her and drove himself into a vacuous hole as the lines deepened on his brow. She had been exquisite. As a young man he savored each word she spoke, drank in her elegance, breathed deeply the aromatic delusion of love. He was intoxicated by the misconception that she had returned these emotions and had always since been hung over, recuperating from the loss.

For some reason he saw fit to accept the pain now. A pile of yellowed letters he had written to her shortly after his arrival in this place hid a worn though unread Bible. He lifted the book with shaking hands, plagued by arthritis and flipped pages that cracked like dry leaves underfoot in late Autumn. Pausing in the book of Job to read a few passages he couldn't help but laugh a bit at himself. The old man's suffering was a product of withdrawal from society and he became aware that his exile was but a choice made, his own open consent to welcome loneliness. There was a second chance for life awaiting him patiently which had only just become apparent. He had woken from a dream to meet life and sank to his knees before a dusty coffee table. He was made to endure this hell he created by design and he could not begin to imagine what wonder awaited him beyond the four walls surrounding him.

Lighting a thin cigarette, hand-rolled and a bit loose, the newly released prisoner peered out of his window at the courtyard below. Several Spaniards and English women, intoxicated by both the beautiful accents and rich wine, danced with the fervor of adventurous children. A stream of blue-grey smoke passed his cracked lips and dispersed outside the window. Below a well dressed young man looked up to the second story window where the old man stood. The younger of the two smiled brightly as he tipped his fashionable cap. The elder for the first time in years felt happiness spread through him and manifest itself as a wide grin. His knees went weak and his chest tightened. The young Spaniard's smile melted to concern when the old man crumpled to the cold wooden floor still smiling, musing at the idea of joining the fiesta.

Inspiration: "Yr Cherry Bomb" Vid & Double Triple

I know it's old, but I just love this stuff - the music and the visuals. I think it's a remarkable, even textbook example of design synthesis with sound instead of text. The album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, from whence this single comes, was released in 2007.



Yet another incredible work by the ever impressive Double Triple. Looking at their design website makes me pretty much mad with design jealousy. Exception: I already had the minimalistic thumbnail concept drawn up for my own site before I saw theirs. Don't let me pat myself on the back for simple ideas anyone could have conceived. Also, can anyone tell yet, that I am a sucker for bright colors? *Looks around furtively.*

from ali : on going MIA and going French

So, yes.

Saturday's slipped by and between the rain and the sleep and the lack of an internet connection, my posting deadline slipped by too -

but the bullet point version of my planned post is: I'm going to pitch an internship offer to local French chef Elle Maisdon [read: let me wash your dishes so I may watch your sauces], who owns and runs the French fusion Chateau Bistro in Emory. I'm calling her tonight and am more or less shaking in my shoddily-heeled boots over it, not because she's intimidating - in fact, she's the quintessential gentle French aunt - but because it's just too perfect. More on why, later, but there's the project simmering at the back of my plans...

a delayed arrival

Hello friends, acquaintances, strangers. My name is Will.

Ever since the rough idea of what has now manifested itself as the tortoise was orignally conceived, I was very supportive. A group creative outlet has been bounced around and attempted for years now, but never successfully executed. Despite my initial enthusiam, I found that sparse internet availability and an ironic lack of "initiative" were obstacles too big to overcome. Enough motivation remained, however, to check in from time to time. What I discovered was that in my absence a small community was thriving. Now, after much delay I find myself standing on the welcome mat, trying not to scuff it with my muddy shoes.

Just like a father serving a prison sentence while his newborn child is quickly developing, I feel very deep regret for missing the tortoise's first steps. Upon my metaphorical release, and actual inception, I realize there is still time left to teach the tortoise how to ride a bike. In an effort to make up for all that I have missed, I am instituting two cardinal rules for myself.

First, I will struggle to be open, which is quite a lofty goal with my pinky backspacing more than my fingers are typing. This is a much more critical environment than I have been affiliated with in the past. That is not to say that the current condition is stifling creativity, but when you come from a background of constant back-pats, so much as a "your last post was okay" can seem harsh. Obviously, my former experiences were not very conducive to progress so I would like to go ahead and welcome any future criticism one might have.

Secondly, I will not deal in putting down another's work. The last thing I want is to advocate the same attitude that makes me cautious of posting. While I may have a few critiques, they will remain constructive and never be voiced in a joking manner. To be supportive is to aid in the growth of others and of myself, which is my intention.

Now that all the formalities are out of the way, all thats left is to sit back and muse over what my favorite things about the tortoise initiative will be. Maybe it will be perusing past posts, and giggling over all the grammatical errors we've made? Or being so filled with inspiration that I stay up until midnight just so the post will be on my day? Or the mixers that we'll attend with people from other blogs? Oh boy, oh boy.

Raiding Eternity

I tilt the picture in my hands just a bit until I can see the scratches on the matte surface. There are hundreds of little indentions, tracks from fingernails showing the many times the photo has been held.

When we scan this picture in those scuffs will disappear. The rest of the world will see only the young, bearded man smiling in some sepia living room. They'll increment the file's viewcount by one, leaving their own perfect hash mark. It won't be the same as the photo I'm holding in my hands, shifting in the light to read its physical metadata, but it won't be inferior, either.

– Joel Johnson, “Raiding Eternity”

A Backward Glance O'er Roads Travel'd

Friday. I promise something fresh, something recent, soon. Until then, here are two poems I wrote when I was 16, within a week of each other. They make me smile, not because they are particularly good, but because they bring me back in ways that only something you produced can. It's funny how that works. Revisiting a thought you had at a specific moment is almost as good as a time machine.

-----------------------------------------

First Impressions

Momentary beauty

in what may have been a dream

mysterious and lovely
quiet and serene

if in a dream it was we met
appropriation of
all beauty and truth beget
you; mysterious icon

Haunting my imagination
puzzling vapors and remnants
the you of my creation
thought of which leads to divinity

I had just encountered that quote from Auguste Rodin:

Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and there defines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated

Completely enamored with this thought, I set about exploring. Could places, people, induce such contemplation? What are the limits of "art". As any good aspiring creative mind would attempt to do, I took this idea in the macro and tried to express it in the micro. My muse at the time, a 17 year old french-cherokee bombshell, provided all the "practical" inspiration needed to express the intangible curiosity I felt towards the label "art". It also has this magical kind of self awareness concerning the fleeting nature of beauty, which I should have picked up on as subconscious hints about the cherokee girl.

-------------------------

The wave

Inspiration

No truer form

A stir in the mist

On the edge of existing

The Movement of the water over the sand

Graceful in it’s quiet, calm, rhythmic, breath.

Pen to Page

Feasible, tangible

on the tip of your tongue

The feeling remains but words won’t come

Choppy and uncertain. Tensing, relaxing. Belief then unbelief

The vastness of the sea, building, taking shape.

Furious Transposing

The reason and the rhyme are one

The time has come to pass

He whispers as he walks the way, “No one wave is the last”

The Wave, white capped and fierce crashes against the cliffs

Dread fills my heart as the tide comes in, its song my spirits lift

Still

The calm must come to make complete, the cadence of the deeps

I find rest, and am challenged by the secrets that they keep

If truly this is the first of many enigmatic waves

I pray that I might be all caught up and in the torrent be found safe.

Overall, probably not as good of a poem, but I am a sucker for the personification in the third verse. The image I had in my head was of this white-bearded, ageless lighthouse keeper type materializing from the crags and escarpments of a new england beachfront and walking by me and into the water, into a Nor'Easter. An acknowledgment that creativity is cyclical and then returning to the chaotic waters, the ether beyond ourselves from which all our good ideas come.

Graphic Design Whim: Musician Crushes

Inspiration

Shopping for shampoo and picking up a prescription for back pain at the local drug store last week, I heard a song by the Dodos over the loudspeakers. It was "Fables," a song I think is somewhat catchy, but I couldn't remember that it was in fact the Dodos who wrote it. In fact, trying to recall the artist was giving me fits of discomfiture. This distraction set me up perfectly to heed the pharmacy background music when the next song came on. As the first bars floated down over the mouthwash and toothpaste aisle, I was ready to lump it away in one of several despicable lite rock of top-40 pop categories. This is my usual way of coping with otherwise unbearably insipid ambient shopping music. But instead I found myself lured by cellos and and a woman's alto singing, "I hope you give yourself up too." I texted myself some of the lyrics so I could look it up when I got home. It gave me goosebumps and I found it very attractive. The song was "What Have I Done" by Anna Ternheim, a Swedish recording artist whose music I hadn't previously heard.

Being that I am male, a musician, and an amateur music critic, it only made logical sense that the sounds of beautiful female voices, belying remarkable female minds, encased in winsome female exteriors might cause me some inspiration. It was only a matter of time before said agitation would have me rattling my way back and forth over a computer keyboard in an effort to type my unrequited admiration out into the vastness of the internet. The result is a series of entries that will be published on my blog, in addition to aforesaid "Decade Music" project, entitled "Music Crushes."

Creation

It didn't seem fit for much literary effort, as the concept is more of a back page magazine feature than anything worth much thought. Besides, with a whim, to over-think is to kill. Rather than merely post pastiches of found photography and music video, I wanted some signature touch of my own. I drummed up quick two-step designs that combine fonts and patterns complementing each musician's style or image (or their own album art, if I feel like it). The first one is published as of this morning [link], and features Neko Case and the new favorite number by Ternheim. Next week's entry will feature Basia Bulat and Jenny Owen Youngs. Other artists sure to be mentioned include Leslie Feist, Zooey Deschanel, and Corinne Bailey Rae.

While Observing at Dusk

The first installment of 'Tuesdays with Taylor' is really quite a shallow and probably undeveloped one but a deadline is a deadline. This bit was just buried somewhere in my journal and I have decided for the sake of sticking to a schedule to go ahead with it since playing basketball by streetlight was ever so appealing. Here it goes...

The Sheltie puppy darted beneath the plank table and gazed out upon the garden as the sky turned to pale shades of pink and orange. His eyes roamed curiously until he caught sight of a thieving raccoon moving on padded feet to the tomato cages. The great fruit heist was at hand as the brown and white youngster darted down the hill bounding clumsily to accost the slinking bandit. He let loose a low, almost comical rumble from his throat. The underdeveloped muscles trembled with apprehension but his determination, overriding any precautionary hesitation, drove him down the hill towards the thief.

Arriving at the scene of the crime, the pup stumbled unprepared within striking distance of the nocturnal, stripe-tailed rodent's claws. The raccoon snarled, swatted, and I grimaced as the furious little claws batted at the wet, inquisitive nose of the unlearned youth. This black and grey,

bushy-tailed, nighttime burglar treated the bold pup's snout to a melee he wouldn't soon forget, snatched the red, ripe fruit from the vine and stole away into the trees bordering the garden's edge to wash the spoils in the creek. I washed the defeated pup's nose while his enemy ate his fill at a safe distance under the cover of night and tree limb.

A skunk darted behind the trash cans near the back porch and his ears perked up and spine went stiff...

from ali : housekeeping continues

For those of you not kicking it here in Canton (i.e. Alden and Gabe), we regionally consolidated Tortoises have committed to a scheduled output of content designed to both a) strengthen our own individual creative production and b) ensure consistent activity here. Gabe, I know you're already spread thin over multiple activities so there's no obligation to commit to timed posting, but you're welcome to as well!


Current deadlines, beginning this week and subject to change as needed:

• Taylor : Tuesday
• Ryan : Friday
• Ali : Saturday
• Conrad : Sunday

And a few notes:

• The days are not exclusive e.g. Taylor can still post on a Sunday, or Gabe on a Friday, etc. Anybody can post anytime, but everybody with a schedule will post something on their day.
• Content is up to your personal discretion as usual and there are no restrictions on what you choose to share - you can roll with a new design, a project idea, a project update, a well-turned line, a full-blown thesis, a song, an inspiration for a song, whatever. Again, the idea is to just post something.

Ideas? Criticism? Frantic preparatory scribbling mingled with thoughtful chewing of pen caps?

---

Oh yes, and loosing my fanatical white-knuckled grip on the virtual file cabinet for a moment...

• Someone (Taylor, perhaps?) had the bright idea to tag each post with the author's name in addition to its category in order to help us find our own or a particular person's posts quickly. Is everyone down with that?
• Gabe introduced the Junk Drawer tag for those miscellaneous items (like this post) which don't fall neatly into one of the three broad categories of Inspiration, Quotations or Creation. But so help me, if you people abuse it... *tightens lips*

Blog Gets a Flag Facelift

I've started journaling on Blogger again because my life is a mite eventful at the moment; that's why I conceived that blog, "Oh The Times We Have!" in the first place, as a chronicle of events. However, I started that blog before I ever honed my design skills, and blogger's "Rounder" template had really begun to get on my nerves this time around. I was watching Leatherheads while I was designing the new banner and color scheme. Somehow something in the film's convincing reproduction of that 1920s era really crept into the style of my banner.


As a side-note, I do wish young women would more often dress the way Renee Zellweger dressed in that movie. An exception might be given for the bright orange hats. I suppose I wish we fellows all dressed the way Clooney and Krasinski's characters dressed, too. But then, as long as we're discussing personal inspirations and styles, I've always felt a little inexplicably homesick for eras before my time.

As a second side-note, I find it interesting that the publisher's term "flag" isn't defined in disambiguation on Wikipedia. Perhaps that should be rectified. For now, see this page for some common terminology I've learned in class and in the workplace, and to understand my use of "flag" in the title here. Maybe this use of the word is part of a dying nomenclature, but if it is, nobody told me.

Themes and Variations on Waking Up

Hello all. I am called ryan. I enjoy building fires on beaches and san serif fonts, so it really bothers me that Helvetica is not an option here at blogger. I used to blog at http://greatintheory.wordpress.com/ but I eventually deleted every post, as I have a particularly bad habit of doing (ask the torn bindings of my moleskine).

I am glad to be here at The Tortoise Initiative; I consider this domain a blank slate limited only by my fear of the blinking black line in the top left corner of the screen. The idealist in me always harbors that hope that all we (the editorial "we") need is one more fresh start, one more creative space to start over and reinvent. As naive as that may sound spoken aloud, we all have a tendency to inwardly believe something similar at certain times.

At the diner, the rising sun will send rays of light haphazardly leaping through the windows, cutting through the steam rising from your mug, and whatever you say during that moment is vigorous and youthful and awake. That is a redemptive feeling. There is a confidence and a forgiveness that comes with letting go, no not forgetting, letting go of failures, victories, preconceived notions of what you are capable of, labels and loss. Everyone has experienced the terror and beauty of waking up in an unfamiliar place. Everyone secretly wishes they could brush their teeth, walk outside and announce that "today, the rules are: there are no rules".

Alas, in the interest of intellectual honesty, we must consider the converse. We must do what is hard and weigh the benefits of the past against the freedom of the untethered life. For there are benefits, I must admit. Momentum can only be realized through an awareness of your own personal history, and truthfully the excitement of waking up at a stranger's place is the fuzzy pre-dawn question "am I home?".

Where do I fall on the issue? Is there wisdom in whole-heartedly embracing the new day, the spring, or are we losing something by forgetting the lessons we learned in winter? Here at the Tortoise I will attempt to do what I have never done previously: Create and not forget. I will not rip the pages out, even if looking back over the clumsy words and fuzzy logic, I see little worth saving. One can still feel the excitement of the pen on paper even if there are pages and pages of rough coffee-stained words to the left.

I like how one of my favorite navel-gazers Søren Kierkagaard puts it:

Nature, at its most basic level, is ahistorical, in that it can only be predicated of history in one way: it has come into being. A smaller subset of nature, potentiality, can be more fully predicated of history.

Potentiality is the thread that ties our past and our future together. There is only what has been, what could be and the vaporous sliver of time called the present where we sift through the latter and fall into the former. When I look at it this way, the sharp distinction between past and present blurs the slightest bit, and I see more clearly that decision is what lies behind them. Every new post could be a million things, and every old post could have been a million things. Accept, maybe even rejoice, in your history, live out your future. Do not delete, do not give up.

I love this song, and I think the video, in a way, expresses what we all value about spring, and new beginnings, but has a reflective ending that kind of blurs those type of distinctions.

*Must be watched in full screen mode

White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo.

So there it is, my first post. Maybe you read it and liked it, maybe you read it and hated it. Maybe by morning I will think myself foolish, or preachy or any number of things, but regardless, this time I won't tear out the page.

Partially Cloudy with a Chance of Vocabulary

from ali : a matter of housekeeping

a moment of your attention, my darlings.

most of you here know I like neat things - I like the Dewey decimal system, and clothes arranged by shade from dark to light, and separating the big soup-slurping spoons from the little ice cream nibbling spoons. Because keeping things neat means less hassle, and less hassle means less time wasted, and less time wasted on hassle means more time to waste on more interesting things, like the latest issue of People magazine.

for example, I don't want to dig around here looking for your so-far altogether delightful posts. I want our content tucked in a few crisp, clean folders, where we can retrieve them with speedy ease - which is where the tags come in. Consequently there are currently only three folder-tags which should be used : Inspirations, Quotations or Creation. Applying more than that (cough GABRIEL cough) interferes with the happily minimalistic filing system, while forgetting to apply one altogether (cough TAYLOR AND CONRAD cough cough) creates the virtual equivalent of having to hunt through the junk drawer for matches - and I hate hunting through the junk drawer for matches.

now my darlings

*rubs out cigarette with care, delicately pushes ashtray aside*

do you understand what I'm saying?

----

p.s. obviously, the tagging system is open to debate, seeing as this is not actually a monarchy.

*fingers gold felt crown longingly*