a letter from the editor
Ladies and Gentleman, please let me introduce myself. I am Stonecutter. For the past year I have been editing the I See Hawks in L.A. Road Diary.Last July, the I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. Road Diary published its first blog. In the past year, the ISHILA diary has attempted to provide a candid and uncensored look at the life of a hippie country folk rock band on the road.
On the occasion of our first anniversary, we will tackle one of the most controversial issues facing all of us today: privacy in the age of infinite, liquid, information. It so happens that our first anniversary is concurrent with the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Netscape Browser. In the Age that first truly dawned with a “Pop” browser, privacy is in constant danger. Just last month, over 40 million card accounts were exposed to potential fraud due to a security breach that occurred at a third-party processor of payment card transactions, MasterCard International said last Friday.
My advice: be careful. Buy gold, and bury it under a rock, disguising all traces of disturbed earth. I am not a musician. I don’t really care for or understand music, preferring to dwell in the spheres of spatiality and chaos theory. I also have Writer Tourette’s Syndrome (WTS), which can affect my narration at any time WTS doesn’t result in profanity, but more of a drift into non sequitur, like those little buttons you find in antique stores, ivory or ivoroid, musty, or was the box musty, the surrounding little parchment fragments, doll’s eyes, postcards of the dead, pin cushions with still lethal stingers, mildewed place cards? I put the box back on its shelf, and stumbled out into the Beaumont afternoon heat. Should I get gas? I’m adrift, and seeking bargains. I might head south to Mexico, but I’m ten years too late. The days of wandering are done. Video plunder has invaded all plateaus, all windswept dry brush valleys. It’s all on DVD, BMW and ING have captured it all, stealing spirits that wept alone until this new millenium, as the age of chrome yields to data. New shine is in megabits, objects are flat and in your head, and the spaces between buzz with microwave, laser, Homeland Security, TiVo, and Trials Of The Century. No coyote howls unheeded, no box canyon whistles to only empath sky, no cactus waits unnoticed. It’s ten years too late. Maybe I’ll get a hotel and watch the Discovery Channel.
Some of the statements in this record will directly contradict other statements that you might have read. Please understand that we are not attempting a whitewash. I am Stonecutter, and I live for truth. My truth.First of all, I’d like to thank you, the readers. Without you, the ISHILA Blog would be not exist. You inspire us to write all night and all day and any other time we feel your inquiring spirit. Again, we want to hear from you: stonecutter@iseehawks.com
The year has been full of challenges as well as blessings.. This past year we witnessed fires, earthquakes, landslides, difficult irritable soundmen, quirky club owers–and fine dining, wonderful breakfasts, generous friends, Virgin River(s). Alt rockers REM were not devoid of inspiration. Their concept “Life’s Rich Pageant,” though dripping with their misguided and possibly pointless irony, once sophomoric and now brittle with aging, is a joyous maypole around which to dance the mind’s dance, All the world’s a stage. Seven hundred thousand lifetimes to enlightenment, say the Sufis, and at this information the spirit cracks with relief, and the future stretches leisurely like a cool summer barbecue as the shade relieves the glare. The Bodhisatva stays not only to help others, but because he likes it here. Watermelon. Baby laugh. Ice cold. Summer rain. Escape. Return. Yearning, and faint remembrance of how it turns out. And everything was fine. The new, haunted by the 700,000, not new at all, and new.Farewell and God’s harsh beauty to all of you, and remember, you can reach my humble self at: stonecutter@iseehawks.com