Just acquired:
- Book: Three Soldiers ~ John Dos Parros (I think. I'll have to check.) The novel about what happened to three men going through army training and deployment in WWI. $1.99 where I usually get fuel for the truck.
- 8 30" x 40" pieces of matboard for $1.27 apiece
- 5 30" x 20" pieces of illustration board for $.98 apiece
- 4 sticks of jumbo charcoal at $.50 apiece
- 2 bottles of india ink at $2.00 apiece
The bookstore at school has been sold to an outside source and they're clearing out alot of their art supplies. I don't think it bodes well for fall but for now, I'm cleaning up. At least I'll be ready when it comes time to mat for the next show.
Listening to:
A show on PBS called Evolution. Tonight's episodes have been about the question of when did the human race became 'human' and evolution vs. creationism. Interesting brain food.
As one of my high school english teachers used to say as he snapped his fingers over his head, "Troops. Trooooops! This is not Romper Room, troops! Make me think you're paying attention to me!"
Gee ~ that last journal entry reads as if I were on something other than a cheesy frame of mind, doesn't it? Sheesh. I didn't explain myself at all.
This theme that runs through my dreams at times is indeed starting to sound like a bad episode of Star Wars. They are dreams of being tempted and 'recruited' for the 'the Dark Side' in a literal 'war of good and evil' by such beings as Mr. Gorgeous. It gets quite ridiculous at times ~ right down to my own reactions in these damn (at this point ~ pun intended) dreams. I find myself doing stupid things like picking up that crystal when I knew it was placed there for me to find and then plugging into it. (Good grief!) I really need to pick up my efforts in lucid dreams again so that I can at least control my actions and not be such a damn idiot, even if these dreams are only products of my own mind (always keeping the possibility open, just in case.)
I thought I had ended these dreams a while back, especially after a particularly interesting one. Now they're starting up again. Ugh.
(Let's see how many (useless) sets of (these) I can fit into a single entry!!)
Using the idea that these are something other than a product of my own mind ~ why me? What makes me so special that I've been targeted for recruitment? I'm no Xena...as much as I would like to be. Heh. I suppose that everyone has their particular rock to push up a hill ~ why couldn't I have a mundane problem to deal with? Sheesh. (NOTE TO UNIVERSE: That was NOT a hint!)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
...and I was going to talk about art and evolution tonight.
They talked to this guy on Evolution (now that word is forever ruined for me. Mention it and I think of David Duchovny and Orlando Jones instead of Darwin.) about when humans started creating art. He was in one of the caves in France ~ I believe it was the 'newest' one, in terms of discovery, that was found in 1994. The paintings that they found in there are the earliest known, at 34,000 years old. They weren't right inside the entranceway either ~ they were found only after climbing and crawling through several small passages. They also discovered, in the same site, evidence of musical instruments ~ a bull-roarer type object and things used to tap some of the formations in the cave, like a xylophone.
Wow...I wonder what kind of music it was? Was it calm and hypnotic or was it raucous and energizing? Was the music in the background as the paintings were being produced?
It amazes me the lengths that these people went to, just to put paint to rock. Crawling through tight cave passages, using only crude tallow lamps, deep into the earth and painting these incredible things by that same lamp light. It speaks to me of a sacredness and determination that has long since been lost and we haven't quite found it yet again.
My thoughts on discovering the beginnings of art are somewhat different, I think, than the scientists on the show. I don't think that there is no way to truly know when art came into being, simply because of time itself. Things disintegrate. Erode. Wear away. The archeological record is fragmentary at best ~ and there is no way to know what has been lost.
Then again, I don't know if I care when it came into being. It did. It is. That is all that is really important.
The same goes for evolution vs. creationism. Up to a certain point, I don't really care how life came into being, on earth or anywhere else in the universe. It did. That is enough for me. However, based on that self-same archeological record, I am on the side of evolution. Given the fact that the record is incredibly fragmentary, there is still enough there to show (in my mind, anyway) how it works. a + b + c + d = e, so to speak. In horses alone, you can see the changes. Hyracotherium (a) adapted to changes in its environment, leading eventually to Mesohippus (b) which did the same, leading to Merychippus (c) and so on (d) until we get to Equus (e). O.k...so it's simplified, but you get the point.
Cause (changes in the environment) plus effect (life changing itself to adapt to those changes) equals the answer of evolution, in my book.
The problem I have with creationism is the idea that things just suddenly 'appeared' out of nowhere. Poof! and there it is, in perfect, unchanging form! It's perfect because god is perfect and god created everything and therefore it's perfect. That just doesn't make any sense to me. Things may have indeed been perfect when they came into existence but they wouldn't have stayed that way. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that all of creation, for lack of a better word, exists in a vaccuum. I know that is impossible ~ winds blow, rain falls and water runs. Volcanoes do their thing. Wind change the landscape by blowing sand across rock and eroding it away. When the rock is sufficiently worn away (say, like the rock formations out west), there isn't a barrier to other weather patterns anymore. More, or less, rain falls. More, or less, plant life moves in. Water runs, again wearing away soil and rock, creating channels and eventually canyons. (Have you ever seen that PBS show about Niagra Falls? One portion of the Niagra Valley was so soft that instead of years for the water to carve through it, it only took about five to seven hours. Because the soft section of the valley was narrowly wedged between two harder sections of stone, it was rather violent. That must have been an awesome sight! Even today, it is a dangerous part of the valley because of a whirlpool there.)
So, class, to sum up: the world changes. Any living thing, no matter how perfect, must change with it or die. However, I'm open to other ideas. Just prove to me how they work...and don't say, "Poof!"
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