Wednesday, February 28, 2007


From time to time, when I am looking at a student or friend while carefully considering their words, the core of my mind switches to a different time and place, often recalling an olfactory signal that throws me careening back to a past time of incense and sunlight. My companion’s mouth will move and her eyes blink as my heart removes to a tempo sometimes long-forgotten, my mind going for a little spin independent of current things
"...so when the book says..."
The seat beside me is empty as the bus bumps up the potholed road, frost-heaved from the recently past winters' long, icy fingers. My friend Tad is at the back of the bus, talking with someone I don't know and haven't ever seen before as we round the corner in front of the Cathedral of the Madeline. As the looming gothic church fills the opposite windows, I take a deep breath from the package I lift from my lap as I think about a girl.
"...but I just don't get it because..."
The huge wooden door's window is still a way above my head, its mottled light comforting in a way that I won't really understand for a few years. As I turn from the sunlight to head downstairs and then out the back, my eye catches the opaque tendril of incense coming from the burner on the room divider; I remember smiling for a moment before running past the grandfather clock toward the stairs.
"...what the heck does post-industrialism mean here on the..."
The light is bright in my basement room as I walk in, with the shades pulled up uncharacteristically high and out of the way. My window, open slightly as I keep it year-round, is slid ajar a bit wider than usual. The air in the room is sweet, heavy with a scent that I can't quite place or explain. I remember sensing the light, the aroma and a strange feeling of awareness. I learned later, through my habit of rattling off interesting experiences to Tad and his characteristic paranoia and blunt confessions, that he had sneaked into my room through the window while everyone was away to smoke opium and avoid being caught in the act at his own house.
"...what do you think, Mr. B?"
As I quickly formulate an answer, my mind still wanders a bit at the root, methodically piecing together the light and scents of my life's experience.

Sunday, February 25, 2007


It happened again, and here's this year's photo to prove it. This one was taken by Jerusha, by the way, and I think she did a great job.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

From a dispatch from the SL Trib about a bill before the Utah State Legislature that would require Utah Congressional representatives to "take council" from the State Legislature here are a few telling lines from the "Honorable" Senator Orrin Hatch:
Hatch told Stephenson he had read his bill, "I'm not a supporter of that.
We get plenty of counseling from the state Legislature and I'm happy to have it."
Then Hatch reversed himself and admitted he had not read Stephenson's
bill.

I would that that all like obfuscations and untruths from Hatch's crooked tongue were
so plainly reported.

Monday, February 19, 2007

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.
-Albert Camus

Friday, February 16, 2007

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
-Galileo Galilei
I would argue that this reasoning might be further construed into such realms as politics, environmentalism, and religion.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

I think this is just great:

One must indulge from time to time, you know.