So, yes, it's been a while since this blog has been in action. In fact, it's been a couple of years since the last post and before that, it had maybe been a few years. I guess this blog was only really up and running for a little over a year, originally.
Minutes ago, I accidentally deleted the last post and I don't see any "Undo" button or see it in a trash can where I can go dumpster dive it. It may be around somewhere, still, but no matter. I was deleting incomplete drafts and somehow I got on the regular post page and mistook it for a draft.
The gist of it, anyway, was that I hadn't made a post in many a moon. In fact, this post shares the same name as the earlier one sans the eclipse bit. It became difficult for me to keep up with regular postings, and I simply announced that I finally, after all that time, had launched my own website:
www.bretthorton.org
There is where you can find all things related to my music, books, art, films and
whatnot. Prior to that launch, this blog served as a smorgasbord for all of that
and after that, the blog sort of petered out.
It proved to be too much in keeping a regular blog or any kind of online show.
While I think I would like to maintain a regular weekly schedule of some sort
of show (be it in blog form or whatever) the few times I've set out to do this,
I've failed to keep it up for long.
One reason is because I've spent a good portion of the last 4 years in China or on the go to other places. The internet in China causes endless frustration (the Great Firewall). Most people know how Facebook and Youtube are blocked. It became worse when I was there, and Google was blocked- I had to get new accounts just to stay in touch with people- at this point, there are so many different accounts for so many different facets that it is truly discombobulating. I go with what Thoreau said, "Simplify. Simplify." What movie or show was it where someone asked the legit question, "Why did he say it twice?" haha So I've aimed to cut down on the accounts that I regularly use.
People over there, especially foreigners, have a way of bypassing all that censorship with a VPN (if you don't know what that is, it stands for Virtual Private Network). Eventually, I got one of those, too, but often, I was busy offline or in a place where the connection was a little slow sometimes.
Also, I've been inclined to write with a a healthy dose of solitude and isolation away from the noise and not expend my weekly energy trying to offer my every thought to public scrutiny. Because I wanted to seek and write truth that is found in deep privacy and not everyone wants to hear the truth (I don't even know if I do sometimes). Sometimes I love attention and the stage; other times I'm not in the mood to be on public display.
I might just bring this blog out of retirement yet- it may have been far too young to retire in the first place. If so, I will just write the way I always do, in notebooks, keeping it to myself for as long as I want, and this will occasionally contain parts of that, or be a separate "Notes..." written to everyone the whole world wide.
That being said, I was back to this small town last night. The word was that a solar eclipse with such totality hasn't happened this way since 1918. All the special glasses were sold out.
I went on a walk earlier today, mindful not to stare into it, as Shawn Golnick facetiously reminded me this morning via Wechat message. I guess I told him once how I stared at an eclipse when I was about 7 years old, and I was suspicious that is why I became so blind.
The light from the sky was dim. It was so tempting to stare right into the eclipse, all over again. I could sense its presence right above me in the cloudless blue sky. The shadows looked different. There were fingernail slits of the infinitesimal crescent sun all over the ground. Luckily, I came across a lady and her kid who offered to loan me their NASA-certified glasses and I looked into it for a few seconds.
The driveway was full of infinite reflections of moon and sun slow-dancing together. I was floating on a giant-small ball of rock through spacy space.
No moment comes again exactly the same unless time is a circle, which maybe it is, or if there are exact duplicates of moments somewhere out there. How can I say for sure?
Then Mario joined the bill and got squeezed into this one.
Then, this. I like how our names aren't even on this one.
Now, this. Though there is another in the works, but the Photoshop machine has gone kooky. Both of us have even disappeared from the photo at one point, so it remains to be seen what will happen next.
