If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris

as a young man, then wherever you go for the

rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is

A Moveable Feast.

-- Ernest Hemingway 1950

Paris aside, you carry your world with you.  The external forms are inconsequential.  Ihave realized through the years and miles that we trick ourselves into thinking that some time in future, the accomplishment of some goal, some other city or country is going to signal the beginning of a golden age for us.  It's not ttrue.  Happiness doesn't reside in some time or place, it is simply an internal condition that we project outwards in order to avoid motion within.   Originally, I named my undergraduate architectural thesis "A Moveable Feast" following Alvin Tofler's Future Shock in the thinking that humans were on a trajectory to excape all that stands still.  It was an untameable chimera.  One must not only be as swift and agile as the legendary beast, but one must find a way to make it hold still just a little if we are to capture and master it.  The Chimera of Greek mythology was fast... so fast that its form was confusion.  Part bull, part serpent, part lion... a tangle of parts blurred into a fiery uncertainty.  It was the essence of change, of uncertainty.  While I searched for the essence of an architecture that embraced this movement I had to always remember that I was hunting a chimera.  To succeed in that hunt I always had to focus on the still moments... the nodes that do not succumb to flux.  These holes in the motion of the world allowed me opportunities to sometimes pour in the molten lead that slowed Bellerophon's prey as it colled, allowing him to master it.  It is interesting to note that Bellerophon's steed was born from the gorgon Medusa's blood.  The gorgons were capable of turning anyone who looked into their eyes to stone.  Pegasus was the perfect foil to Chimera.  The creature of speed, born of a creature that immobilizes, in league with a hero who needed to immobilize the firey Chimera.  Pegasus, as a tool, was found by seeking out that which makes things still.  In fact, Bellerophon's first task was to make Pegasus hold still.  The still points build on each other creating a network of stationary nodes by which we can navigate the flux.

The still points in my life that give me opportunities for happiness and understanding have revealed to me that it is, in fact, the motion that confuses us and tricks us into thinking one thing will solve all our problems if we can only attain it.  Our desires are chimeras.  At one moment appearing to be lions, the next serpents... It is dizzying to try to keep up.  Where I once thought I needed to find or design something that was infinitely changable, it soon became aparent that finding or designing such a thing inherently nullifies its infinite possibilities.  The goal line makes a quantum leap as we reach it.  Douglas Adams mused that, some poeple believe that the answer to everything was imposible to comprehend and that if anyone ever managed to figure it out, the universe would be instantly replaced by something even more complex and incomprehensible.  The search is infinite.  Of course that is only true if you're chasing chimeras.  My strategy has become one of careful observation.  Finding the still points in life and living in them so that the Chimeras aren't a blur.  When you are spinning or falling, it is often helpful to look to something that isn't moving to gain your bearings.  I find that the same hols true for happiness.  Keep in focus the things that truly matter and the chaos will fall into order for you.  To see the inherent order in the universe you have to step out of it for a few moments.  Inside the vortex all is confusion.

In my hunt for tools to aid in my chimera-watching, I've haphazardly collected a lot of stuff: words, images, ideas, music.  It all adds up to a map of my thinking.  A temporal geography constructed through the very process of journeying (hodos).  In constructing this site, I am hoping to take the blur of ideas and impressions that have been cluttering up my mind for years and let them settle into a sort of fatidic pile that will guide me deeper down the rabbit hole and ultimately to deeper happiness as well.

So what about me?  Who am I ?  What am I like? That's always a hard question for me.  It's probably because I'm thinking too hard about what the questions really mean.  I can tell you who I am based on what I am (father, husband, architect, etc) or I can tell you who I am based on what I do (artist, writer, teacher, DJ, etc) or I can tell you my physical or mental characteristics... But do any of these things tell you who I am?  Not really.  In fact I find I am less well described by any of these things than by simply experiencing me.  And fortunately, I think the same is true of most people.  So I am always less interested in what people are than how they make me feel...

In keeping with my theory of being still... this site doesn't move very quickly... LOL

I am way behind in getting things up here.  I am trying to be better but, right now you'll be lucky if I post to my blog or update my reding list.   I'll get around to adding some bits and pieces eventually.

While you're here, enjoy some of the things I enjoy:

Read the The Moveable Beast Weblog for my latest thoughts and discoveries.

I upload family pictures every so often so those who are interested can see what my baby boy is up to.  You can see those here.

Network with me at MySpace.com or Friendster.  Preferably MySpace... Friendster has gotten too hectic lately.

Find out what books I'm reading and what I recommend in the Library.

Read my music reviews and see what's currently playing on my iPod.

See where I work.  I am now an employee of EOP Architects here in Lexington.  You can see many of their projects at the website.

Get up to the minute news from every major news operation out there at Google News (The only truly unbiassed way to find out what's going on is to read the same story in a few newspapers, they all have a bias in one direction or another.)

Find out what's going on above you at Space Weather.com

Surf around my stomping grounds using some of my frequent links