These are musings/artifacts from the wanderings of a distracted visionary developing his trigger finger. Think of them not as the dictations of a man with it all together, but rather, communications tapped out in half-remembered morse code, from a Jonah in a whale, not sure where he is headed, but assuming there's a destination. Hence, like a Jonah, I send out a nice mix of insights from the inside and cries for help. andrewmwhaley@gmail.com.

If California had been a woman this morning, I would have whistled at her!

I just love California when it looks like it did this morning. Woke up around 6:30 and drove into the shop around 8:00. Coming down the 150 into Santa Paula was stunning, and ordinary, and stunning that something so stunning could be ordinary. The pale mist was hanging on the peaks like opium smoke and the greens were so deep you could taste them. It reminded me of good old G.K. Chesterton talking about a kid’s take on nature and how logical it is. The apple tree makes apples because it’s magic. But, you say, don’t all apple trees make apples? Of course they do- they’re all magic. It’s funny that just when nature is the most beautiful it points to itself the least. It’s sublimity is where it is “most thin” so to speak. Beauty is where nature is at it’s most threadbare and you are able see underneath it, to get a peek at the the world beneath the skin of this one. So, if you’ll pardon the metaphor, California was like a woman in a gorgeous summer dress, backlit by the sun coming in the doorway- the dress is beautiful, but she is infinitely more so, and a moment of illumination brings a glimpse of the sublime beauty underlying. Lookin’ good California! Wooooowoooo! (Is there a standard on how to spell that whistle.)