identify the playground rules
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11.29.2003  
Clary Pots

We just returned from Clary Illian's sale, a once a year event that is amazing. Even nearly 10 years after I apprenticed with her, I'd never attended one of her sales until today, but it lived up to my expectations. So many great pots - easily a thousand or more when she opened the door to customers at 9am. We arrived at about 9:20 to find long lines of cars down the street, and about 70 people inside, looking over the wide range of things to choose from, waiting in line to check out, clutching pots for fear of setting them down and losing them to someone else. We joined the fray and came home with a great group -- and we're getting better about buying some as gifts for other people, but still can't resist some for ourselves.

Some people are surprised at the fact that I buy other potters' pots, but to me it makes perfect sense. For one, I'm so fascinated by pots that I can't help but be a collector as well as a maker. I want them around, to eat from, look at, store things in. Also, every pot holds potential lessons for me, especially those by potters I admire and whose success and experience I hope to emulate.

As objects to study and learn from, there's a world of difference between a pot seen briefly in a gallery or museum and one I can examine over a long period of time. I think getting closely involved with a pot on a regular basis is the only way to really understand it, to digest its essence. It's more like a relationship with a person than just physical proximity to an inanimate object. And I also like the idea of giving pots by others as gifts -- it's a way to show friends and family some of the range of studio pottery beyond my own work. And it's exciting as hell!

What a great experience. I admire Clary to no end, and will always see her as a role model of ways to approach life as a potter. She does it as well as any I've seen, and I can only hope to learn and follow along a simlilar path -- my own, but one very nearby.
~ scott @ 3:35 PM [link]
11.11.2003  
Plastic

Photography freed painting, plastic freed pottery.
~ scott @ 11:26 AM [link]
11.03.2003  
There Is No Movie

My heart's all aflutter with the upcoming release of Matrix: Revolutions.

Unanswered Questions:

Is Zion in the real world?

Are any of the following really human: Neo, Trinity, Morpheus?

How did Neo use the EMP blast at the end of M2?

Is the Oracle the "mother" of the Matrix?

What is the Oracle's purpose? Only to direct Neo towards the source?

Who is the man being led away from the Merovigian's table in M2?

How did Smith get into the "programmer's access" hallway in M2?

Did Neo really foil the Architect's plan for reloading the Matrix?

Are the Architect's other statements true? (e.g. the number of prior Matrix-es, why Neo made his choice, Trinity and Zion doomed?)

What do we end up with?


Theory:

The theme is free will, with love as a primary example of a non-logical choice. It's only capable of being expressed by humans like Neo and Trinity. (Purpose/destiny are related issues.) However, humans can't exist without machines now, as expained in Councilor Hamman's speech, and so the Revolution in M3 will be some evolutionary merging of humans and machines. This is the last version of the Matrix before the Revolution creates something entirely new. The bleeding of the Matrix into the real world (Smith/Bane, Neo's EMP blast, the Kid unplugging himself spontaneously) are foreshadowing that the boundary between the two worlds is artificial and that on this evolution is coming in M3.

Neo, Smith and Trinity are the first instances of this new race of human-machines, as proven by the fact that each have been resurrected in one world with a resulting change in their abilities in the other. Somehow, we'll see that Trinity is the mother of the Matrix that the Architect refers to in M2 - a force working at counter-purposes to the Architect's plan to continually reload the Matrix.

Keanu Reeves quote from thematrix.com: "Ultimately, the Machines’ survival is threatened as well, and the humans, programs and Machines have to find a way to cooperate to ensure their survival.”

Other Predictions:

Neo will meet the Architect again and will defeat him in the final battle; take control of the Matrix.

Zion is the real world, but the real world and Matrix must converge somehow to free the humans in pods.

Smith is the primary threat in M3 - replicating in both the Matrix and Zion. Defeating the Architect (and/or changing the nature of the Matrix itself) kills all instances of him.

The Zion council will reveal some additional info not yet known to Neo and Co. regarding Zion's realtionship to the Matrix - they have a hidden agenda.

A higher power/structure than the Architect will be revealed; this is forshadowed by old programs like the Merovigian and Oracle that seem to have autonomy and their own agendas.

The purpose of the Matrix as a power supply for the machines will be shown as a red herring - there was another reason for its creation.

Well...?
~ scott @ 2:27 PM [link]

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