Networkin'

I finally got my neural network piece on my 25th birthday this year.

Two neurons connected by an axon. It's even got a synaptic gap!
3 meanings from this symbol in reductionist terms:
1) Neurons are part of a network, they all have to communicate with each other and work as a unit ("The whole is greater than the sum of its parts"), much like a community.
2) Represents my brain maturing and critical understanding of young children and inevitably myself and others through neurobiology/temperament
3) Synaptic gap=leap of faith. No synapses actually touch, electro-chemicals must jump the gap to deliver message.
Also, note the thick myelin (repetition/experience strengthens the axon)

I'm looking forward to this year like no other. I feel mid-20's will be like a toddler/teenager stage of human development where I can feel the power of my autonomy and impact in my micro and macro system, but I've still got a lot of learning to do. Though my mileage is racking up, with each year passing, I feel my spirit staying the same or becoming "younger."

Candid review of Zardoz

After trying for an hour to post this supposedly candid and low maintenance review, Netflix would not let me post it. Because I picked the "Love It" star, I'm sharing it the review and screen caps here:


I didn't expect much but considering its low budget (some people describe this as "cheesy") the culture of film at the time (1970's/controversial/nudity) and considering the fact that I had just watched a PBS special on the "Dark Ages", I immensely enjoyed this film, chosen on a whim.


This movie strikes me as a cross between A Clockwork Orange, The Labyrinth and some sort of Twilight Zone episode. The characters/writing (Renegades and Apathetics), music, editing and directing are excellent (The whole film is a Wizard of Oz reference), There are several subtle twists, psychological thrills and unintentional (?) laughs. This director really tries your patience with some longer sequences of shots (i.e. the scene exchanging knowledge through "osmosis and touch") but the images
are inventive and the rhythm of editing keeps us Generation X, Y and Zeds interested.



Yes, there are controversial subjects like rape and death, but they are not sensationalized-in the context of the writing it's pretty appropriate. There are also subjects of feminism, the social-emotional and rebellion.


Though I "loved it," there were a couple of parts where I was confused like, if that Alfred guy was really dead or if Zed was just tripping off "knowledge" If you're not uptight (meaning getting past the dated exterior), looking for something you don't see everyday (visual and auditory), try something new.
Haha. Revenge to the Children's Books section!

Today, a man and PILLOW get married. Also today, same-sex partners are still denied marriages.

Blog Noir

The not-so-distant past:
My other half knows me so well :)

...One of them garbage people...

I remained thoughtful of the hardworking mechanics about to invest their time in maintaining my vehicle by looking around my car for trash. "They deserve better," I thought as I reached for an old McDonald's bag in the backseat and its counterpart orange juice beverage leaking in the cupholder. Cup in the bag, (half-empty or half full?) I reached for the driver's side door compartment where I had been saving used tissues in case of, literally, a spitting emergency. Filled to the brim with soiled Kleenex, balled up McDonalds' wrappers, half full, 3 day old orange juice and refuse fit for the King of Smokey Mountain/Tondo, I scanned my perimeter for the nearest trash receptacle. Maybe a steel one would be appropriate for garbage in this state? These isotopes are a-decaying and not a single Rubbermaid in sight!

Feeling my panic, mystery mechanic reached his hand out like the God that is painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Humbly I called out, "Please do not worry, 2nd Christ, this time I will pay for my sins," but from my mortal coil, it sounded more like, "Uhmm, no it's okay, i'll find a trash can." My brother insisted that he carry the remains of my support of globalization/high caloric burden (choose one depending on your politics) and in stoic silence, he grasped the mouth of this fast food carcass. As the weight shifted from my proprioceptive system to his, I could feel IT, like a tracker with their ear to the ground, I knew what was about to happen, but only by seconds. As if lead bullets were thrown onto a scale of circumstances, the bottom of the bag split open like Athena from Zeus' skull, pouring tepid and sticky orange juice like it was Niagra Falls and haling units of stiff tissues like a December day in San Francisco. I watched like an OBE, Out-of-Body-Experience, the contents of this makeshift trash bin out of a friendly McDonald's bag gremlin that pops out those pustuled and vicious gremlins when it gets wet, they exploded all over the mechanic's Reeboks (Were they Reeboks or were they Filas? Who wears Filas nowadays though?...) That moment was proof that slow-motion existed outside of Sports recaps (Do they still do those slow-motion recaps?) and in that moment from trash diarrhea to man's porous shoes, I didn't realize that such a small cup could contain so much liquid. Had I even sipped on that orange juice or did some Catholic demon switch out my small McDonald's drink for a container of Super Gulp proportions?

Stewing in my shock, my apologies were absent, but before I slipped into a laughing hysteria, (In the discretion of my friend's economy car) I just had one thing to say to this former savior subjected to my human waste, "Ooooh, my bad!" With no reaction to the events, he swept away the previous contents of my unmentionable time capsule like a professional, perhaps like it's happened before, suspicious...I mean really, dude, I just spilled like 8 oz. of bacteria Atlantis all over your kicks and not even an eyebrow raise like you're stoned and you hear something in the distance except it's really nothing because you're just paranoid? Okay, it's whatever, I guess...

So just to recap, you can choose your adventure!:

Long-term thinking/Chaos Theory: I had a cold, but still had to get around, so I brought tissues in the car for excretions of that nature. A week later, I was working and going to class non-stop that day, I was famished and on a budget, so I stopped into a local fast food joint. My poison, being a small orange juice, just wasn't a good fit to that day like I thought it was so I left it in the car. Continuing with my work and being busy for the whole week I suddenly remembered I need to bring my car to the service place in my neighborhood for repair. Trying to make things more comfortable for the mechanic helping me, I collected visible trash before I left my vehicle with him and in went the orange juice and tissues. As I was handing my trash to him because I did not see a trash receptacle, the bottom of the bag became soggy and all the trash fell through and the entire orange juice splashed all onto his shoes.

or Short-term thinking/Reductionism: Got to the car repair place, didn't want to look like a slob so wanted to throw away Mcdonald's crap. Put in orange juice that I didn't drink, but the top of orange juice unloosened, thereby soaking the bottom of the McDonald's bag that was containing trash, like crispy tissues from when I was sick. When I was handing the trash to him after not seeing a trash can, the weight shifted and the orange juice spilled all over his shoe for literally 60 seconds. I said, "Oooh, my bad!" and then jumped into my friend's car while laughing and processing what just happened.

The lesson that I took away from this was to never, ever brandish your empty, or not so empty, McDonalds' trash to anyone, maybe not even your inner circle.

--True story from San Francisco, Spring 2009

Exercising my innate desire to use my sense of symbolic logic

This is a draft of a post I started a couple months ago. My theory of demystifying gravity is still in its early stages, so bear with me.

Also, the creation of my new pseudonym was born when I visited the Bishop Museum planetarium in Hawaii:
"Soloterre Hokuhele"

"Soloterre" came up when I was watching La Planete Sauvage (Fantastic Planet) several years ago and liked the name of the main character, Terr, a strange little human on a weird, sexy, acid-tripish, alien planet. Terr sounded like the last part of my birth name, "taire," as in Solitaire, so I decided to roll with the French thing and alternated, "Solo," for the, "Soli," and, "Terr" for the, "Taire," but added the E at the end for phonetic value.

"Hokuhele" came to my mind when I was sitting in the dark of the Bishop Museum planetarium in Hawaii and we were examining the contellations that appear in Hawaii's sky. Hawaii is notably a telescoper's dream because of how much of our sky we are able to see due to its unique coordinates on Earth. Anyway, I can't recall which planet was known as, "Hokuhele," but the idea of a wandering star resonated with me because of the comparisons between people and stars and because growing up I was always moving homes & schools.

In short, Soloterre=lonely planet, Hokuhele=literally translated in Hawaiian is wandering star, but etymologically speaking is what they called a planet because they move in orbit with the our solar system's sun.

I <3 Earth, we may not be the only living things in this universe/pluriverse, but because of Chaos Theory, we are truly unique!

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"In Hindustani, Arabic, and Malay the word for planet is the same as star which is tara or sitara, kukba, and bintang, respectively, although graha is sometimes use in Hindi. In Chinese the word is xíngxing meaning wandering star; for comet it is huì-xing (returning star), meteor is liú-xing (drifting star), and asteroid is xiao xíngxing (small planet). Comet in Hindustani is ulka tara (tailed star) and meteor is shahaba. Russian is basically the same as other European languages: zvyezda, planeta, cometa, and meteor as is German: Stern, Planet, Komet, Meteor. Hawaiian has hoku hele (star wandering) for planet or major planet, hoku welowelo (star floating in the wind) for comet, and hoku lele (star flying) for meteor. Swahili has sayari for planet, nyota for star, nyota yenye mkia (star with a tail) for comet, and kimwondo for meteor. In Turkish yildiz means star, gezegen means planet, comet is kuyrukluyildiz(tailed star), meteor is akanyildiz (flowing or running star), and asteroid is küçük gezegen (small planet). Kuyruklu is akin to tail and cycle, the Hindi ukla, and the Greek cercos (tail) and telos (end). Planet in Japanese is wakusei, comet is suisei (the Japanese space agency launched a probe in 1986 with this name which flew by Halley (Lang, 2003)), meteor is insei or ryuusei, and hoshi means star and the names of all the planets (major planets by Def. C) except Earth have the -sei suffix and it is also found in its word for constellation, seiza. Curiously, the Latin languages have changed their words for planet and comet from feminine to masculine, except French, but have retained the feminine form. We can see here that names for comets, metors, and asteroids, although sometimes poetic, are not scientific since these bodies are not stars; the same thing goes for small or minor planets, they are often called planets but are not planets."http://www.astro-taxonomy.net/)

Gravity weighs us down, gravity is what's in between everything in space.

When you look up at a flat looking sky, what you're seeing is NOT the distance or "space", rather time because the most of the starlight seen in the night sky is reaching our eyes on Earth from a long distance that by the time it reaches our eyes, that star, planet, galaxy, cluster of galaxies, super cluster of galaxies, or wall of super cluster of galaxies is long gone. We know gravity and time are not "things" and light can pass through both "things".

!!!!!!!!!!!!!#!!!!!!!!!!#!!##!!!!!!!!!!!#

If you or anyone you know would like to critically debate/humor my musings of things of that nature, vamos!

Vulnerability is Inevitable

When I hear old people singing, it makes me cry.

Tonight I accompanied my mom to a gala at the Rrazz Room nightclub in Hotel Nikko San Francisco. Though all the performers were fabulous (Sharon Mcnight can get me on my feet with tales of bacon any day of the week) we were there to see Petula Clark, famous for several hits spanning over seven decades. Petula sang a familiar song, "Downtown," then shared a poem written on a train from Paris to London with the audience which MOVED my mother to shed a couple of tears. Needless to say Petula is a magical 70-year old woman. When I got back home, I acquired some of her recordings and I am SOLD. I can see how my mother is inspired by this artist because I am too. I consider every single one of Petula Clark's songs wonderfully moving and insightful. It probably doesn't hurt that Petula is a Scorpio sun sign like me. Sidenote-I see a PATTERN some Scorpio sun sign artists that I follow like Bjork, Bat for Lashes and now Petula Clark who've become internationally known in their 30's. They're not "super famous" in their early teens or early 20's, so I interpret that as sign to look forward to my 30's. What if in our 30's us Scorpios shift the focus of our imposing shadow to instead reflect and radiate our light out into the external. Just playing. Now I digress!

As I listened to Petula's recordings, which took place while my mom was just a dreamy teen in the provinces of the Philippines, there was this quality in Petula's voice that I focused on. Her voice in the songs were dripping with youth and I wondered if this was the voice my mom expected to hear tonight. I wonder if Petula's young voice is how my mom wants to feel like again but the voice of the Petula of today is what my mom feels like now?

In a voice/vibration, without language, one can feel where a person is in their life.

Petula's lyrics contain a lot of the same theme of going to where all the lights are and forgetting your worries. Anyway, I started crying because I really did have a moving and magical night with my mom, entering her world and "being in the moment." "Being in the moment" then made me think about the moments preceeding them. My mom pretty much has lived/lives synchronistically (if that's a word) by Petula's lyrics-throw in some lyrics about hustling and war and my mom's personality is complete.

After crying I felt better because the act got some cortisol out of my system, and I reflected on the way I receive and express my emotions. I feel really moved by my external life on a day to day basis, which I am grateful for (all my relations) so much so that I think about taking on everyone's vulnerability so that they keep moving in strength, even if its away from me. I would rather watch "them" move away from me than bear to see them sink like Leo in Titanic. What does that mean? And why do I "feel" like describing my experiences and emotions is a "bad" thing? We battle/work with our emotions every day yet we never really discuss them. I think about how this social construct affects us. The relationships we have with objects, people, places and ideas are what we really experience. Just as we don't actually see light, rather we see the subject the light bounces off of, sometimes we don't really see what the thing/"problem: is, depending on our social/cultural/neurobiological epistemology, rather the relationships/emotions that they evoke (want, like, hate, scared, ignore). On that note, so much information is being found in the latest neuroscience research about the relationship between the emotions and learning. What a novel idea that emotions are a part of everything that we are thinking.

Play is practice-"The process of doing will get you there"

I took the Creavity Workshop at California Institute of Integral Studies and wanted to share the written processes/products that I had previously shared with the individuals in my class in order to reflect on the level of vulnerability that I usually do not display in front of colleagues or otherwise. Being between half strangers, half friends, I felt a wonderful balance of risk and safety.

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A sensory experience- Five surprise bags were passed around the room, ready to open and be engaged in some olfactory-to-hippocampus goodness. Guess what was in the bag that I chose to write about!:

Drowning on my bed
Familiar angel sends me
Vapor lifesaver

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Context-Professor/facilitator asks us to start our process with, "I am from an island":

I am from an island,
from turnkey apartments and lonely TV's
I am from plumeria trees
welcoming young climbers
From, "Mr. Mayor, this is Sol's daughter,"
and, "Honey, you should get in touch with your father."
I am from school to school, 1-3 times a year
From ti leaves to redwoods
From 2nd place tiaras and singing different languages on a cruise ship
I am from the cafeteria waiting to go home and a graveyard of Hawaiian royalty turn perfect waiting/playing spot
From 20 pairs of slippahs near the doorway
From 20 cocoons of monarchs to guard
I am from ordinarily warm waters and dime-a-dozen waterfalls
From hot cookies and enriched bread
I am from, "I thought we were going to have a new boy in class."
From the smell of cardboard and sticky vinyl
From, "Hey blackjack, poker, like the card game right?"
I am from a single diamond in the rough.

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She-Who-Facilitates-One's-Creativity asked us to pick a line from a poem, to begin our process with, again, (can't remember title and author off the top of my head and citing resources is important to me!) and I picked, "There's a big stranger in town called the sun":

There's a big stranger in town called the sun.
They say he is a star, but I don't see it.
On bad days, he looks crazy
Out of control, brandishing a flame-thrower?
But on good days, he is like a father to all, being welcomed with picnic baskets and BIKINIS.

I see him all the time, even in pictures.
I like him when he wears sunglasses.

Sometimes he goes out of town, but I know he'll be back
Because I see his friend who waits around for him in the same place.
I hope someone will wait around for me like that.
It's probably just his drug dealer anyway.

Have~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Do~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Be
<------------------------------------------------------->
Which way do you go?

My intentions after the workshop:

1. Act more on my creativity
2. Take risks OR feel safer
3. Lessen the dichotomy between artist and audience
4. Hope to spark creativity in others
5. Rid my perception of "art"
6. Continue to notice creativity in everyone, everywhere and in everything (yay i'm hella spiritual!)
7. Play more!
8. Start anywhere
9. Appreciate self more, respect (acceptance with no agenda to change) self more
10. Implement different approaches to test levels of participation in audience/artists/class dynamics.

In addition, the word "daughter" was a choice in a wordpile and after three intelligent, warm, strong, etc. women connected beautiful imagery, ideas and experiences in deeply moving ways about their love and awe of their daughters (intense), I decided to hold off on "the author's" interpretation:

What do you do when you are lonely?
Have a baby!
And if you have a daughter you can dress her up in cute dresses or a DIY style (if that's your cup of tea)
While you brush her long hair, you may find yourself dreaming about her becoming a doctor!
For the working mums, when she is still small, but big enough to know it is bad to not do everything her mum tells her to, you can tuck her in some corner of your cubicle where she can play with scraps of printouts and paper clips, all for free!
But wait, there's more!
When she is of age, she can drive you around while you make important phone calls and run important errands.
When she gets too old to be cute,
DOUBLE your fun by playing matchmaker and find her a nice professional man
So that when you are,
now old and lonely, you can
Have a baby!

I never said my shadow side wouldn't manifest itself. Of course it's equally proportional to my light side.

Sometimes I find it intense that I'm going to be ME for like, 70 more years.