it wasn't the best of xmases because i was kind of counting on this, and i waited till the last minute to start up with the wheedling and bugging, but it was worth it. it is an RKS Jr., a prototype (not even a serial number).  it's a 3/4 size body with Duncan pickups and a 5 way switch. it's an extremely unusual and atypical RKS; out of the fewer than 2,000 that the company made during its life, there was only one of these. and now, it belongs to kurtwood.

 

 

for a time i spent my self just touring my ... i was thinking microcosm, but realized i was not precisely sure what that meant so i wikipedia'd it ...

Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos. It may have begun with Democritus in the 5th century B.C. or with Pythagoras and is a philosophical conception that runs through Socrates, and Plato and through to the Renaissance. With Pythagoras, the discovery of the golden ratio and its philosophical conception called the Golden mean, the Greeks saw that this golden ratio is repeated in all parts of the ordered universe both large and small. The Greeks were very concerned with a rational explanation of everything and saw this repetition of the golden mean as a pattern that was reproduced throughout reality. It is a product of the ancient Greek mentality of seeing reality as a whole and noticing patterns that are repeated throughout all the levels of reality. In short, it is the recognition that the same traits appear in entities of many different sizes, from one man to the entire human population. Macrocosm/microcosm is a Greek compound of μακρο- "Macro-" and μικρο- "Micro-", which are Greek respectively for "large" and "small", and the word κόσμος kósmos which means "order" as well as "world" or "ordered world".

... my own microcosm, my own occupancy in these cosmos which is only newly ordered, and astonishingly almost orderly.

 

i am in love with the beach. i am in love with living in a tiny orderly apartment over a generally disorderly collection of businesses including one called 'tacos and beer', i mean seriously, tacos and beer, what's not to love?

 

& within this there is indeed a golden mean, by which i mean the elegant feel of the air against my skin & the soft late afternoon light & the peace that comes of solace, of having solved most of the things which had haunted me leaving me in this hauntingly beautiful aftermath, with its ocean view & its elegant air & this feeling of finally having settled into something that is not stillness at all, & yet ...

 

if this is as close as it ever gets to perfect, that will be fine. there is still an edge out there & many details to which i must still attend, & yet ...

 

life is good.

lessons of the beach:

... when i pause during my beach walking to take pictures of odd things. i, however, look funny right back at them, i mean, i'm only taking the pictures, someone else made the pictures takeable. you know?

and if we die tragically, chances are a heartbreaking makeshift memorial will be lovingly assembled in our name(s).  the La Conchita memorial, in honor of those who lost their lives, families, homes in the terrible storm of '05 that sent a mountain of mud sliding down through the tiny beachside community, is pictured below, along with the Tim Barry (or Berry) memorial, I am not entirely sure the details but he may have been a homeless man, perhaps also a surfer, whatever he was he was well-loved and/or fondly thought of by many, and I think maybe he liked baseball.

 

on down the sand from these shrines for people i never met, lies the remains of the sea lion i met just once.  as i approach, the seagulls eye me warily (they seem to be lined up waiting for a turn? or whatever other protocols are dictated by the pecking order, and there is definitely a pecking order). they retreat to a safe distance as i take today's pictures, there has been much activity since yesterday, but red flesh still glistens in the nooks & crannies. i wonder about the distance they keep -- nice of them but you know if they insisted upon staying it would be ridiculously easy to keep me away, they outnumber and outbeak me many times over. 

 

i take my pictures and i take my leave, noting the jogger approaching from the north -- how weird is it, what i'm doing? i wonder, and struggle against caring what the answer is. i do what i do, think what you will.

i met the sea lion one morning, maybe my second day walking the beach. unusual, since this is not a big sea lion hangout, this beach. friends had spotted the same fella (or gal) in about the same place several times.  he seemed a bit lost, or perhaps a bit hurt, because he let me pretty darn close without any real alarm. could've gotten closer but didn't want to impose (i stress out enough mammals in the course of any one day, but only the ones who deserve it, which this one did not). i took a quick picture with the camphone and walked off smiling, marine wildlife will do that to ya.

 

a couple weeks later, there was this scene at the water's edge, seagulls battling for position upon some highly desirable prize. approaching, i saw bones, and first impression was, whoa, a sea monster? because pinniped bones have that vibe about them, i can tell you, after standing there a good half minute or so soaking in the site before me, and realizing with a certain sickening certainty that this was the docile sea lion, or what was left of him -- skin gone, bones (with organs still stuck to them) shining in the morning sun. spent the next hour or so struggling to refrain from vomiting. took longer than that to realize i was fascinated, and another whole day after that, to remember the camphone.

 

so this morning i took pictures. as i will tomorrow, and the day after, and so on. and so it goes, and so it goes. in the unlikely event anyone ever reads this, and happens to have a tendency to feel whoopsy upon seeing decaying things, i do apologize for two out of three of the pictures below. i myself had these very tendencies, at least i did two days ago, but i resized and uploaded them while eating a big bowl of mac & cheese so i guess i'm a little less easily queasy these days, which is fine.