3/26/10
3/15/10
Somerton time capsule to be opened
It's said that wine improves with age, but does that apply to brandy as well?
Somerton officials may find out during the Somerton Greater Days celebration Saturday when they dig up and open a time capsule buried in concrete in 1985.
One of the contents is a bottle of brandy from Mexico that has remained sealed all these years and presumably is ready to be savored - unless they decide to put the bottle in a new time capsule the city plans to bury for another quarter-century.
The original capsule was a metal canister in which city employees and residents had placed mementos from that era, among them personal letters from residents, city documents and photographs.
In an interview in 1985, then-City Administrator Marshall Bingham explained that the time capsule was an idea he had borrowed from other communities that wanted to provide a way for their residents to communicate with future generations.
"The common man just wants immortality," he said at the time, "and that can be done by leaving behind mementos from one's own era for residents who follow.
"You are reaching out to people in the future. This is a way to say to mankind, 'You are part of the community,'" said Bingham, who died in 1987.
The capsule was encased in concrete along Somerton's Main Street with instructions that it not be retrieved and opened until 2010. City officials today have decided to open it on the occasion of Saturday's annual celebration of Somerton's 1898 founding.
The opening is scheduled to take place at about 11 a.m. after the traditional Greater Days parade ends up near the site of the capsule, on the north side of Main between State and Somerton avenues, said city Parks and Recreation Director Louie Galaviz.
Among those who plan to be present for the unveiling are Francisco Soto, a public works supervisor for the city, and four surviving members of the city council in 1985 that approved the capsule idea: Sam Colton, Linda Contreras, Reed Kempton and Jay Vance.
Soto, then a public works employee, helped bury the capsule, but not before he and a co-worker split the cost of the bottle of brandy and placed it inside.
Soto said he and the co-worker had speculated that bottle might be of increased monetary value at the time of the capsule's opening if, in the meantime, the brandy maker were to go out of the business.
He doesn't remember which of two brands he and his friend bought — either El Presidente or Viejo Vergel, both of which remain on store shelves today.
The co-worker has since passed away, but Soto says he doesn't plan on claiming the bottle Saturday. He prefers that it be placed in a new canister the city plans to bury in October.
"Then it's going to be 50 years old," he said.
Soto said some photographs of the city and a booklet about Somerton's municipal government were also placed in capsule, but after a quarter-century, neither he nor Kempton recall many of the other contents.
"I know we put in some papers and some documents and I don't know what else," said Kempton. "I don't think we put anything of earthly value in it."
Galaviz said city officials are considering putting the contents of the capsule on display at City Hall or the Parks and Recreation Department after Saturday's opening.
In the new capsule scheduled to be buried in October in Sanguinetti Park, Galaviz would like to include letters written by current Somerton elementary school students to one another. The plan is to bring them together to read those letters when that capsule is opened in another 25 years.
Among the items from today Galaviz would also like to include is a cell phone, which would have to be donated by someone.
"I don't know how cell phones will be different in 25 years, but in 1985, I don't think anyone had a cell phone."
Somerton, Arizona. March 11, 2010/ By John Vaughn- Bajo el Sol Editor.
(Thanks to E.M.)
2/27/10
2/23/10
2/22/10
10/13/09
9/28/09
9/22/09
It's good that I was not Lady Di
(Thomas Demand. Tunnel, 1999)
No obstante, la historia de la filosofía está dada, y nos muestra el conflicto entre sistemas, la imposibilidad de meter de forma satisfactoria lo real en las prendas readymade de nuestros conceptos readymade, la necesidad de lo hecho a la medida. -Bergson
8/31/09
7/29/09
6/10/09
5/8/09
5/5/09
00:01
Sin embargo, no hay estado del alma, por simple que sea, que no cambie a cada instante, pues no hay conciencia sin memoria, ni continuación de un estado sin la adición del recuerdo de los momentos pasados al sentimiento del presente. En esto consiste la duración. La duración interior es la vida continua de una memoria que prolonga el pasado en el presente, sea que el presente contenga distintamente la imagen siempre creciente del pasado, sea, más bien, que, por su cambio continuo de calidad, atestigüe la carga cada vez más pesada que uno arrastra tras sí a medida que envejece. Sin esta supervivencia del pasado en el presente, no habría duración, sino solamente instantaneidad.
Introducción a la Metafísica. Henry Bergson, 1903.
Introducción a la Metafísica. Henry Bergson, 1903.
4/15/09
3/17/09
3/8/09
2/20/09
Yes, everything can start all over again
Case #5BB02B || January 2009
Jose,
We have completed the diagnosis and recovery research of your hard drive. Your drive was evaluated in our lab where we were unable to read any data from the drive surface. There was a internal mechanical alignment problem which partially contributed to the seizing of the motor. This occurs when a device is dropped or constantly run. The motor of the drive does not allow the platters to spin, thus not allowing the read and write heads to read the information off of the drive. Unfortunately due to the type and extent of this damage the data is unrecoverable.
Please contact to have the drive shipped back. If arrangements are not made within 10 business days of this notice it will be environmentally safely disposed or recycled.
Jeff Borges
SALVAGE DATA
Salvage The Unrecoverable
Hard Drives, RAID Servers, SQL Databases, Exchange and more
www.SalvageData.com
76 Progress Drive
Corporate Park,
Stamford, CT. USA 06902
Jose,
We have completed the diagnosis and recovery research of your hard drive. Your drive was evaluated in our lab where we were unable to read any data from the drive surface. There was a internal mechanical alignment problem which partially contributed to the seizing of the motor. This occurs when a device is dropped or constantly run. The motor of the drive does not allow the platters to spin, thus not allowing the read and write heads to read the information off of the drive. Unfortunately due to the type and extent of this damage the data is unrecoverable.
Please contact to have the drive shipped back. If arrangements are not made within 10 business days of this notice it will be environmentally safely disposed or recycled.
Jeff Borges
SALVAGE DATA
Salvage The Unrecoverable
Hard Drives, RAID Servers, SQL Databases, Exchange and more
www.SalvageData.com
76 Progress Drive
Corporate Park,
Stamford, CT. USA 06902
2/19/09
Charles Mingus Decides to Wait
Charles Mingus || 1935: Watts
At thirteen, my boy Charles arrived at the conclusion that there was more to life than people have time for. Important things came in such rapid succession that he’d hardly begun to solve a problem before another arose and each day burning questions were crowded out by new ones and disappeared into the past unanswered.
He began to realize he had some sort of mystic powers. He felt he was able to touch people, to contact certain souls in the next room or miles away or even those who had died. In later years he had this special kind of empathy with Farwell Taylor, an artist friend of his in Mill Valley, and they often experienced a mysterious awareness of each other while in different parts of the world.
Ever since Elsinore and the afternoon at Mr. Rodia’s Charles had felt a telepathic communication with Lee-Marie. He was sure they were having the same dreams and thoughts and feelings at the same moments in time. So he wasn’t at all surprised when he boldly asked for her number and she answered herself and said immediately, “Oh, Charles, I knew it was you!”
As if it were the most natural thing in the world and they saw each other all the time, he invited her to go to the show at the Largo in Watts on Saturday afternoon. He knew she’d say yes and she did. The rest of my boy’s week was full of anxious calculations. He’d already spent a nickel of his twenty-five-cent weekly allowance and he knew better than to ask for an advance. Admission price, a dime apiece. Ice cream sodas, fifteen each. He rummaged in Daddy’s vest pocket, stuffed with Chinese lottery tickets and poker chips, found an extra quarter and copped it without a qualm. Total, forty-five cents. Five cents short can be as big a problem as five hundred dollars short, depending on circumstances. He knew he had to cut-rate his way in somehow. The kids told him Stewart Harrington, the Largo Theatre doorman and ticket taker, was beyond bribery, but you could get an usher to sneak you in the back door for a nickel. Then you’d go out front, ask for a return pass, meet your girl at the candy store, pay for the sodas, take her back to the theater and buy her a real ticket and you’re both safe inside. Total, forty-five cents.
All goes well. In the dark theater they sit side by side, full of the love they’ve saved so long, dying to kiss and touch and hold each other but scared of being noticed by Lee-Marie’s sister Patricia sitting close by with their little brother. They think she must be aware of their wandering hands and uncontrollable deep breathing and fraudulent concentration on the movie screen they’re staring at but neither of them really sees. Charles’ hand, loving carefully, perfectly, slips into her sleeve to touch her naked little breast. Timid fingers feel around her nipple’s areola as it swells, hardens and throbs. His hand slides down and tugs and finally her blouse is pulled free of her skirt. She covers her lap and naked stomach with her coat as her slip is pulled away. His fingers crawl down the edge of her elastic panty band and press pleadingly. Her skin tightens to his touch, she bites her lips together with her teeth. Her stockinged foot caresses his leg. She spreads her thighs. Pains of delight crawl and squirm. Beads of warm perspiration seep into his palm as his fingers smooth the soft, fine little fuzz that grows from her navel down to her damp, hot pubis where a few scattered long hairs roll and twist around his fingers. This child, this woman, this wife! He holds her wrist as it slides inside his unbuttoned fly and his jacket covers her innocent, kneading hand. At last in a single thought together with little or no movement both reach a climax and turn to look into each other’s eyes, slowly nodding their heads as the gradual letdown comes. Their moist fingers untangle. They rise. Lee-Marie leans toward her sister and whispers, “Stay here. I’ll be back.” Together they go out to the unromantic theater parking lot. Without a word they open their mouths to each other, drink each other’s love taste, swallow, and in their magic oneness say at the same time, “I was you!”
“Is that what love is—being one, Charles?”
“I don’t know. But I felt your thoughts. I read your mind.”
“I did too!”
“We’ve always been like this, Lee-Marie.” Charles takes her little hands. “But we can’t do this again until we’re grown and old enough to be married. We’re going to wait.” And she cries, “But I love you, I love you! I’m yours and you’re mine now, tomorrow, forever!”
He buttons her blouse beneath the coat draped over her shoulders and they look deep into each other’s eyes, living for a brief moment on an isle of thought that exists until this very day.
Funny thing about love. My boy was thirteen years old and he understood that in the eyes of the world they were only two small children and their passion was against every rule of God and man. “Man” was the powerful and dangerous adults surrounding them.
He stayed away from her for five long years after this happened. Sometimes he’d ring her on the phone, listen to her voice and hang up quickly, or go all the way to Southgate to walk past her house hoping to see her moving about inside the imprisoning walls. Sometimes she waved from a window and he could see her smile and he wondered if there were tears in her eyes, for there sometimes were in his. But he felt she knew his love and it was only a question of time before her family would consent to their courting.
From Beneath the Underdog. In elementary school Mingus played in the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic, but listening to Duke Ellington on the radio shifted his focus from Claude Debussy to jazz. His improvisation on the double bass made him the forerunner of the modern jazz movement; he regarded his music as a form of self-liberation, "the only place I can be free."
Source: Lapham's Quarterly, Volume II, No.I. Eros. Winter 2009
At thirteen, my boy Charles arrived at the conclusion that there was more to life than people have time for. Important things came in such rapid succession that he’d hardly begun to solve a problem before another arose and each day burning questions were crowded out by new ones and disappeared into the past unanswered.
He began to realize he had some sort of mystic powers. He felt he was able to touch people, to contact certain souls in the next room or miles away or even those who had died. In later years he had this special kind of empathy with Farwell Taylor, an artist friend of his in Mill Valley, and they often experienced a mysterious awareness of each other while in different parts of the world.
Ever since Elsinore and the afternoon at Mr. Rodia’s Charles had felt a telepathic communication with Lee-Marie. He was sure they were having the same dreams and thoughts and feelings at the same moments in time. So he wasn’t at all surprised when he boldly asked for her number and she answered herself and said immediately, “Oh, Charles, I knew it was you!”
As if it were the most natural thing in the world and they saw each other all the time, he invited her to go to the show at the Largo in Watts on Saturday afternoon. He knew she’d say yes and she did. The rest of my boy’s week was full of anxious calculations. He’d already spent a nickel of his twenty-five-cent weekly allowance and he knew better than to ask for an advance. Admission price, a dime apiece. Ice cream sodas, fifteen each. He rummaged in Daddy’s vest pocket, stuffed with Chinese lottery tickets and poker chips, found an extra quarter and copped it without a qualm. Total, forty-five cents. Five cents short can be as big a problem as five hundred dollars short, depending on circumstances. He knew he had to cut-rate his way in somehow. The kids told him Stewart Harrington, the Largo Theatre doorman and ticket taker, was beyond bribery, but you could get an usher to sneak you in the back door for a nickel. Then you’d go out front, ask for a return pass, meet your girl at the candy store, pay for the sodas, take her back to the theater and buy her a real ticket and you’re both safe inside. Total, forty-five cents.
All goes well. In the dark theater they sit side by side, full of the love they’ve saved so long, dying to kiss and touch and hold each other but scared of being noticed by Lee-Marie’s sister Patricia sitting close by with their little brother. They think she must be aware of their wandering hands and uncontrollable deep breathing and fraudulent concentration on the movie screen they’re staring at but neither of them really sees. Charles’ hand, loving carefully, perfectly, slips into her sleeve to touch her naked little breast. Timid fingers feel around her nipple’s areola as it swells, hardens and throbs. His hand slides down and tugs and finally her blouse is pulled free of her skirt. She covers her lap and naked stomach with her coat as her slip is pulled away. His fingers crawl down the edge of her elastic panty band and press pleadingly. Her skin tightens to his touch, she bites her lips together with her teeth. Her stockinged foot caresses his leg. She spreads her thighs. Pains of delight crawl and squirm. Beads of warm perspiration seep into his palm as his fingers smooth the soft, fine little fuzz that grows from her navel down to her damp, hot pubis where a few scattered long hairs roll and twist around his fingers. This child, this woman, this wife! He holds her wrist as it slides inside his unbuttoned fly and his jacket covers her innocent, kneading hand. At last in a single thought together with little or no movement both reach a climax and turn to look into each other’s eyes, slowly nodding their heads as the gradual letdown comes. Their moist fingers untangle. They rise. Lee-Marie leans toward her sister and whispers, “Stay here. I’ll be back.” Together they go out to the unromantic theater parking lot. Without a word they open their mouths to each other, drink each other’s love taste, swallow, and in their magic oneness say at the same time, “I was you!”
“Is that what love is—being one, Charles?”
“I don’t know. But I felt your thoughts. I read your mind.”
“I did too!”
“We’ve always been like this, Lee-Marie.” Charles takes her little hands. “But we can’t do this again until we’re grown and old enough to be married. We’re going to wait.” And she cries, “But I love you, I love you! I’m yours and you’re mine now, tomorrow, forever!”
He buttons her blouse beneath the coat draped over her shoulders and they look deep into each other’s eyes, living for a brief moment on an isle of thought that exists until this very day.
Funny thing about love. My boy was thirteen years old and he understood that in the eyes of the world they were only two small children and their passion was against every rule of God and man. “Man” was the powerful and dangerous adults surrounding them.
He stayed away from her for five long years after this happened. Sometimes he’d ring her on the phone, listen to her voice and hang up quickly, or go all the way to Southgate to walk past her house hoping to see her moving about inside the imprisoning walls. Sometimes she waved from a window and he could see her smile and he wondered if there were tears in her eyes, for there sometimes were in his. But he felt she knew his love and it was only a question of time before her family would consent to their courting.
From Beneath the Underdog. In elementary school Mingus played in the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic, but listening to Duke Ellington on the radio shifted his focus from Claude Debussy to jazz. His improvisation on the double bass made him the forerunner of the modern jazz movement; he regarded his music as a form of self-liberation, "the only place I can be free."
Source: Lapham's Quarterly, Volume II, No.I. Eros. Winter 2009
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