The Fly on the Window

So I was watching television and I paused it in order to get a drink of water when I heard this tiny, little, high pitched sound coming from the window. I walked over to it and saw my little visitor here, and now that I was closer, I could see the horrified look on his face as he clung to the outside of the slick, glossy surface of the glass some 50 feet above the street below.

He repeated his almost inaudible cry. "help me." 

"It's okay," I said. "You're a fly. All you have to do is let go."

"Oh." he said. "OK. Thanks." He dropped off the window. I looked down, but in a split second he disappeared, lost in the busy background of the street below. In my thoughts I wished him well, and I went to the kitchen, thinking that he was having a much more interesting day than I was.

But Tuesday's Just as Bad

Playing Stormy Monday on an instrument
intended for Puff, the Magic Dragon.

This is the only known picture representing my brief but furtive professional musical career, which took place in its entirety in a single evening at the Black Dog Coffeehouse somewhere in the bowels of Kansas, during which I played the goofy 12-string guitar you see pictured here. (That's me on the right.) It must be noted that I made no mistakes, and also that no money was involved, except at the end of the set when I got a cup of coffee and they charged me for it.

I paid for the coffee, but I did not put a tip in the jar.

For this gig, we called ourselves the Square Waves.  That was mine.

My son was there--that was the whole point, a father-son band, as you can see with the front man there and his son, the bass player--but my son was not in the picture. Well, not exactly. He is being eclipsed in this shot by the front man, Detroy. Hence the term front man, I guess.

We played for about 45 minutes--all covers, of course--and I did not sing. The most challenging piece was our rendition of Stormy Monday, I thought. Detroy gave me the chords, and I listened to the Allman Brothers Band track about 20 times, and made my own part on the 12 string. It was all a lot of fun.

 Did we suck?  Oh yeah. Not as bad as the free-form jazz combo with the Pakistani drummer and bass player, but that's another story. Or, actually, no--I'm never going to talk about that.

Photography

Don't usually do this. This is a picture of my son, who has already clearly demonstrated that he ain't afraid of no Internet, so I don't mind posting it. He took the picture.  It's a selfie, albeit a slightly sophisticated one, as it was taken with a Sony mirrorless camera instead of a cellphone. Then I altered it somewhat, just for fun, to make it look sort of like a painting.

Typical haunted expression on his face,
no doubt as he ponders his childhood.

He inadvertently (I think) used what is called "Rembrandt Lighting" for this picture. Rembrandt lit his subjects a certain way and the method is recognizable by the way the shadows fall across the face. This happens to be an almost perfect example of Rembrandt lighting, as a matter of fact.

The Internet does have some sources for this but generally, instructions for artistic methods in photography as found on the Internet usually begin and end with "the rule of thirds." This picture violates that rule, by the way, as did Rembrandt most of the time.

I could get into a bunch of technical crap--actually I would enjoy that--but that's OK. Photographers nowadays (maybe always) really think too much about the gear they use, which is almost to be considered as ridiculous as writers obsessing about what kind of keyboard or monitor they use when they write. In photography, ideally, the picture is the thing, just as in writing, the story is.

Seriously. Did I Take Them?

I've had a lot of thoughts--I just don't always write them down.

I swear!

But, it's interesting, if you have a thought but never speak it nor write it down, did it exist? You say yes, but even Jesus said, by their fruits you (ye, whatever) shall know them. The world of the mind is a pretty slippery thing. A brief alignment of neurons firing a certain way, is that even real?  It's like "data" for which wireless companies insist on payment. Right there should make you suspicious. Next time you are charged for data use overage, you should demand of your wireless company to show you the data in question. How big is the pile of data?  How much does it weigh?

"Studies Have Shown" that we tend not to remember our thoughts that well. We remember sounds, and words that were spoken, much more. So, if you don't remember something, did it exist?

Pretty scary ideas for someone approaching 70, for whom old memories are supreme, and new memories just fading, slippery notions, like a cloud that looks like a bunny until you turn your head and then look back. Did I take my pills this morning?

More on the Interminable A/C Compressor Droning Sound Saga

Drone--used to mean a persistent, low-pitched, unwavering sound, not a remote controlled flying device. A fixed-pitch pipe appended to a bagpipes is also called a drone, and this is closer to what I'm talking about, although, believe it or not, there is less musicality to a defective A/C compressor unit than to a set of bagpipes. I know because while it's been awhile since I've heard bagpipes, I hear A/C compressor units right at this very moment.  At this writing, as they say. And at all times, pretty much, more when it's hot out. (Note: it is Kansas City, and it is summer.)

The maintenance guy went up to the roof a few days ago and I think did something, because the noise lessened just a bit. But there are several A/C compressor units up there (right up there, on the roof, right over my top floor loft . . . ) and so there are still a couple left that are making noise. I spoke with the leasing agents and was informed that the maintenance guy has declared his work here done. My work here is done, he must have cried, arms outstretched as he stood on the rooftop overlooking the city even though no one heard him because his cry was drowned out by the droning sounds coming from the forest of A/C units around him.

urban rooftop A/C compressor garden 

So, I officially give up. My options are to stay here and quit whining about it, (although that would be difficult on both counts) or to move, and pay the very high fine for breaking the lease.

I am leaning toward moving. I'm really getting tired of listening to the drone. I found an apartment, all nice and new and quiet, very far from downtown where I now live, with rent low enough so that by the time I get to the end of December, I will have recovered the amount of the fine. And from then on, pure gravy!  Plus, the new apartment has a year-round pool!  How awesome is that?  And carports! And, strangely but most welcome, a free car wash and vacuum station on the premise. WTF. I'm in.

I'll miss the hipsters, though. It was so much fun watching them try to parallel park.

wait what?

I just noticed that I posted two sunset pictures in a row, and rather cliche pictures, at that. For this I sincerely apologize. Sunsets are sort of commonplace, as they happen every single day, and though some are better than others, most are stunningly average. In fact, one might say, on average, they are all average, their only true attribute being they remind us of the capacity in the human soul for finding beauty in the chaos. So, worth something.

Here, then, is a picture of Arthur listening to some Mozart, I think.

Sunset

The sun sets on the West Bottoms

Pictured is the sunset of May 3 (2018) which allowed the night to overtake the Missouri River Bottoms, the Charles Wheeler  Airport (one-time very cool Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri,) commonly called the "Downtown Airport" and once considered the most dangerous airport in the U.S., and the rather hair-pin river bend around the south end of the two runways.

This is also the view from either of the two windows of my loft in the River Market area of downtown Kansas City. It is rather industrial, actually, and one constantly hears multiple train engine units pulling freight along the south side of the river, or across one of a couple of bridges, also visible from my windows. When I was a teenager, we referred to the act of one long, sustained car honk as "laying on the horn." The engineers of these trains sometimes lay on the horn, at any hour of the night, (no matter how wee) and I don't really know why. Is there a cow standing on the tracks? What is a cow doing so far from the barn at two a.m.? Perhaps the laying on of the horn in the middle of the blackness of night is something train engineers do for pure joy. It's loud here; it must sound awesome from inside the engine.

There are other noises.  Bolted firmly to the roof just inches above my head, as I occupy my top floor loft, are, like, five or six air conditioning compressor units. You know the ones. Yours probably sits outside, beside a back, or side, wall, and when it comes on it makes a loud humming and whirring sound. I have five of these and they are old and they hum and whirr more loudly, and they also vibrate and sort of . . . thrum.  If two or more of them are running at the same time, the thumming sets up harmonics, which resonate through the roof and into my loft, ultimately winding up inside my skull, sounding like incoherent demons urging me to do something, I don't know what.  Yet.  I have reported this noise, this local variant of the Taos Hum, to the "Lease Managers."  It has done no good, so far.  According to the Internet, tenants with noise complaints have little legal recourse. The terms for breaking the lease are two and a half months rent, plus 30 days notice.

The math:  2.5 x (too much) = (way) x (too much.)