Time . . . recorded.
Freya's day . . . Forecasters seem to be using Xerox . . .
Not so for Charles Bukowski, one of America's most original poets who was born on this date in 1920 Andernach, Germany.
Another artist always reinventing herself, Madonna, turns 66 today. The contemporary pop-culture icon Madonna Louise Ciccone was born on this day in 1958 Bay City, Michigan. In May, she wrapped up her 12th world tour in Rio de Janeiro with a free concert on the beach attended by 1.6 million fans, making it the largest standalone concert event in history by a recording artist, Taylor Swift notwithstanding (yet).
The Weather is Hot On the Back of My Watch
the weather is hot on the back of my watch
which is down at Finkelstein’s
...
but you know what they say: things are tough all over,
…
you can only kill what shouldn’t be there.
…
and I realize that if the poems are bad
they are supposed to be bad and if they are good
they are likewise supposed to be . . .
…
It was 4:35 pm.
– Charles Bukowski, “the weather is hot on the back of my watch" from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973. Harper Collins.
Giants are “Big”…really
It's Odin's day . . .
Apropos of Odin as the wisest and most powerful (in Norse mythology): Today in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. Heather Cox Richardson provides an excellent historical overview in her Letters From An American.
Talk about “big” . . .
When we search Google, stream a movie or shop online, the computing power necessary to accomplish those internet-based tasks probably isn’t front of mind. But all our digital actions require massive warehouses full of servers to process and store an ever-expanding universe of data. More of these large data centers are being proposed and built across the world.
Massive warehouses full of servers produce a lot of heat, meaning more energy and water are needed to keep those facilities cool. For example, last year Google’s data centers in The Dalles, Oregon, accounted for more than a quarter of the city’s water use.
As investments in AI technologies increase, so does the construction of more data centers to continue feeding and training the data- and power-hungry systems. Pacific Gas & Electric told investors this year that it has received more than two dozen applications for new data centers, which would use 3.5 gigawatts of power in total. That’s the output of three new nuclear reactors, enough to power nearly 5 million homes. And that's just in California.
How Big?
... “Soooooo big!” – The Witch, describing the giant, in Sondheim's Into the Woods. According to her, it was all about “the beans.” (Bernedette Peters in the original cast).
It's only absurd
when I try to make sense of it.
Memories link to the origins
of the Universe.
Small as I am –
dust mot in a unbeam
from a mid sized star
in a mid sized solar system
in an infinitely large universe –
nonetheless, would I make
each moment holy.
We are made quite
enough.
— jab
Egg frying on the sidewalk . . .
It's Tew's day . . .
It's no longer “can we save nature?” It's can we allow nature to save us.
“We're toast.” Pinpointing the point of no return from climate/earth warming.
Our brains are melting. . . as the climate changes, so do we. – Clayton Page Aldern
Our fates are tied. We have this strange notion on this planet that our fates are not tied. If it were not so we would not be here together. It’s that simple. – Luisah Teish
Can you remain open for the unknown future to fill up your life with Creation's gifts of yet-to-come surprises? When we are fully present, we may find and enter the great space of awareness. However, it takes practice to come to know this space and to enter it willfully. Within this space we can find a different relationship to loss, pain, and trauma, allowing such emotions to dissipate and release themselves in that expanded space of awareness. – Grace Schireson
Remembering Rachel Carson. Amanda Palmer reads husband Neil Gaiman's poem “After Silence.”
How Hot Is It?
Even the night-birds
have gone
silent.
– jab