sid smith's postcards from the yellow room: podcasts from the yellow room I

sid has just released his first podcast on an unsuspecting world.

give this a listen!! it's filled with beautiful music! you'll love his geordie accent as well.......

Sid Smith's Postcards From The Yellow Room: Podcasts From The Yellow Room I

coloured ice light

wintertime is defined by shades of grey. colour and light becomes even more magical and eye catching. i took this series of images as the sun settled to the west and sent the weakest rays skipping across the sky, through the air and some were slowed down, caught and frozen inside this shelf of ice in my back yard.

i.

ii.

iii.

iv.

v.

vi.

vii.

viii.

david hykes' harmonic choir

i can't recall the first time i heard david hykes' harmonic choir but i do know that it was in the early eighties. it was one piece on a compilation of similarly challenging music and i remember that it stood out from the rest by being somehow more human than the other music.

david brings an extraordinary depth of musical presence. this has come about in large part through his work as a dharma student of choky nyima rinpoche, who gave him the name shenpen yeshe, "the primordial wisdom that brings happiness to beings". he also completed twenty years of spiritual studies in the gurdjieff foundations in new york, san francisco, and paris, as a student of gurdjieff's successors lord john pentland and dr. michel de salzmann.

david's own website describes his music as:

"a deep fusion of sacred chant and overtone-based throat singing reveals and explores the essential harmonic nature of contemplative mind in relation to the music of the spheres. hykes's music and teachings explore the harmonic nature of vibration found at every scale in the universe, for harmonics are to musical sound what the color spectrum is to light.

they are the vibratory dna of all music in this resounding creation, from the still-echoing harmonics of the big bang, to the harmonics of stars. closest to home, we can discover the deep chord of our own being-- the harmonics of mind, heart and body."

here is david hykes and the harmonic choir "arc descents" ...



david again but with instrumental support - "times to the true" ...



to learn more about david hykes then you should visit his website.

how many worlds - faithful and ribot

a few years back, brian eno released an album featuring his vocal and instrumental work entitled "another day on earth". among the many beautiful works on the disc was one entitled "how many worlds".

my reading of the lyrics compels me to consider the graceful fragility of our whole earth and then also the microcosm of my own little world(s). there's an aspect of accountability about how conscious i am of the powerful events that take place each day at both ends of the scale and then also my place in the long now of human history.

how many worlds

"thinking of a world and the light of the sun
and all the many lives that were ever begun,
ever begun.

our little world turning in the blue
as each day goes there's another one new,
another one new.

how many people will we feed today,
how many lips will we kiss today,
if we wake up?

how many worlds will we ever see,
and how people can we ever be,
if we wake up?

thinking of a world in the light of the sun
and all the many lives that were ever begun,
ever begun."
brian eno (2005)

marianne faithful has a new disc appearing shortly, and "how many worlds" will appear on that disc. i have never been a "fan" of marianne's work but her voice carries strength and history and fragility all wrapped into one and so in small doses i find her work compelling. marc ribot accompanies her here and his guitar work - aided by an e-bow - lends even more emotional colour to her presence within the words . . .

here are marianne faithful and marc ribot with a room full of string players, rendering this lovely song . . .



here is brian's original version accompanied by an extraordinary video shot near kilworth, ontario . . .

john martyn

over on sid's blog word's out that the great guitarist john martyn has flown away. hardly a household name in north america and yet acknowledged as an incredibly talented man in the eyes and ears of musicians everywhere, john crafted some extraordinarily beautiful and memorable works.

i got to see john at larry's hideaway in toronto in the early eighties. drinking heavily, (john and i!) he appeared nervous and unsure, making up for something (who knows what a man of such incredible talent could feel he lacked?) but he slowly found his place on stage and painted colours in the smoky air with his heavily treated and effect-laden guitar.

here are two of his more exquisite works . . .

from 1973 . . .



from 1978 . . .

organizing the recycling cycle

this household produces one half bag of garbage per week as well as four blue bins of recycling. as much of the recycling originates in the kitchen, there's a constant process of managing its movement from the kitchen to the bins that looks like this:
1) leave the item(s) on the counter. 2) carry the items from the counter to a space on the floor near the garage door. 3) pick up the items from the space near the garage door and sort them into the bins.

it's the first two steps that i'd like to address. first and probably most obviously, little piles of cardboard, cans, and plastic on a kitchen counter are not very attractive, in fact they're kind of messy. secondly, while it makes for great entertainment for the watchers to see someone pile in through the garage door and do a bit of a hop-and-a-step over the heap of bits and pieces, it's grumpy-making for the hopper and stepper!

you likely have solutions of your own for this, and to be really honest, i've not really thought about solutions - obvious or otherwise - but this morning i came across a product design that seems to take care of steps one and two very neatly.

online magazine yanko design is featuring an idea developed by designers guisset constance and cid grégor that i think has tremendous value for people deaing with a recycling issue like the one i descibed here. it's such an obvious solution, but then really good design often does take the obvious and encapsulate it in an object.

named "tri3", it takes a design that many of us already use for food storage or in our offices and applies it to a stacked sorting system that allows for the placement of three different elements of the recycling / garbage streams. my community has a two-stream recycling model in place so this design suits us well. the third section would work well for this autumn when my city moves to collecting household "green" waste.
so have a look.

a little light makes its way through

visitors to the golden fish might like to know that this blog has a brother . . . sister . . . friend over in flow.

"flow" publishes twice a week.

footprints

the morning air is filled with falling snow - thick as porridge - blowing in shades of grey in the weak morning light, orange then pale yellow then grey in the light umbrella under the streetlamps.

a day for escape into other worlds . . .

book stacks

they're all over this house. waiting. filled with ideas, stories, facts, thoughts, poems, dreams, crazy lovely people. books. everywhere!!!

here are a couple of unread book piles . . . just waiting . . .

we'll cross that bridge when we get there . . .

among the many archetypal dreams i have is one based on a childhood memory of seeing a suspension bridge - a big one - being built near runcorn in england. in my memory, the bridge was built from opposite sides of the canal that it was crossing and so there was an essential middle piece missing for some time.

in my dream i have to make my way across that bridge and somehow get from one side to the other. the symbolism is obvious.

sometimes there are bits of bridge jutting out just far enough that i am able to extend myself to grasp a piece of the other side and swing myself over. other times its a run and a leap. regardless, there's that awful deep in the pit of the stomach feeling before, during, and after the event.

today i'm going to share a video from japan of what has to be the most rickety suspension bridge i've ever seen. as i watched the footage, i felt that exact same fear as in the dream and so forced myself to watch the entire video which consists of a person carrying a handi-cam, crossing the bridge. if you have headphones, then put them on to get the never-ending sound of the wind whistling and howling as you look down several hundred feet through a broken plank to the river gorge below!!!

woven glass

goldenrod - one of my readers (hails from houston) - suggested that i might like to have a look and then share the lovely work of eric markow and thom norris with you. never heard of them? neither had i 'till she mentioned in a posting of her own that i might like to root around and dig up something on these boys. apparently they have sorted out an amazing challenge, how to make woven glass - woven glass - now there's a concept!

i searched around and found out that thom and eric run a studio that focuses exclusively on woven glass. their work is exquisite, really exquisite and begs to be touched! the story of how these men met and melded their thoughts into these magical beautiful works is best told in their own words:

""american artists eric markow and thom norris met in 1994. The two started collaborating on organically inspired stained glass window commissions for the next decade. over the years as glass flame work and glass fusing became more popular, markow & norris began several years of experimentation to develop handwoven glass.

they imagined an art form that seemed impossible to comprehend and even more impossible to create. inspired by the inexplicably complex framework of the natural world, markow & norris create enigmatically harmonious works of art.

each deceptively organic form requires extensive planning and flawless execution. the effect is tightly woven, vividly colorful and distinctive works, conceived with a marriage of science, art and alchemy. markow & norris live in falls church, virginia with their two parrots simon and sydney."

here they are starring in a tv profile . . .


Watch CBS Videos Online

and here are three of my favourite pieces . . .

ancient bamboo . . .



goldfish petal . . . gotta have something goldfishy 'round the house . . .



my absolute max out my visa and to heck with the kid's going to university favourite . . . hyacinth . . .



go here to find out lots more!

brought to light

i was reading the saturday paper from toronto recently and came across an article referring to a documentary assembled by the national film board that is entitled "this beggar's description." i hadn't seen it, nor had i heard of the subject of the documentary - montreal writer and artist philip tetrault until i read about him in an article entitled "the "r" word". "r" being the first letter in the term retard.

as a child, the term "retarded" was used as a handy catch-all phrase to describe anyone with an undefined or difficult to define intellectual disability. nowadays i hear it used as a perjorative to describe anything that doesn't work quite right, or that is stupid. within my own little world i find it offensive in the same way as sexist or racist comments. it lumps the non-neogtiable features of a group of people into a term that is negative and a put-down.

on a more positive note, it is one of the challenges and joys of our time that that term has been unpacked to a degree and that the full spectrum of what is hidden and contained within it, is not only being recognized, but better understood and even accommodated and celebrated.

to be frank, the journey has barely begun.

the film entitled, "this beggar's description" was shot by pierre tetrault, philip's brother. in it he documents his brother's journey through the darkness of mental illness. diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, philip (as is often the case) also carries the double-edged sword of being an extraordinarily gifted person.

in this clip, philip shares a park bench, drinks, and his writing with leonard cohen, one of his longtime friends.

philip glass "company"

music for a cold january evening - a sunset sky rising from pale salmon through peach to the palest butter yellow to a faint eggshell blue into sky blue and then lost in the overhang of the porch roof over the backdoor . . . . philip glass' music interpreted by the kronos quartet - "company":

fourty-nine days

my dad died fourty-nine days ago. i don't know how or even why. it doesn't make sense to me. but then death is a mystery. an apparent ending that doesn't necessarily resolve all of what went before it.

being an ending, perhaps it describes the beginning of what is to be becoming for the spirit that has finished its time here.

those who know something of buddhism and the rituals and ceremonies connected to the flying away of a soul will be aware that this day marks the end of the prayer cycle begun for my dad’s soul on december sixth. these prayers have been spoken by buddhists that my dad was connected with in cobourg, toronto and tibet.

i am not a buddhist myself, although i’m aware of some of the buddha’s teachings and buddhist philosophy. recognizing my need to understand or at least to be aware of the buddhist approach to dying and death, i took it upon myself to learn some of what my dad worked towards and anticipated in his passage from this plane of existence.



here is what i have found.

the buddha taught that we should always keep in mind the impermanence of life. i think of the guitar craft aphorism “there are few things as convincing as death to remind us of the quality with which we live our life,” as i write this.

living with the knowledge that we will die is difficult - but accepting an obvious and irrefutable truth often is.

for the buddhist, death is not the end of life. it is the end of the body we use to carry us through this life. our spirit remains and seeks out attachment to a new body and a new life. where the spirit is reborn is a reflection of the past and especially of the accumulation of all the positive and negative actions which result in what is called karma (cause and effect).

karma is such a commonly used term nowadays that even my own students and children have something of a sense of its relevance to their own lives. according to buddhists, our lives and all that occurs in our lives is a result of karma. every action creates a new karma, this karma or action is created with our body, our speech or our mind and this action leaves a subtle imprint on our mind which has the potential to become future happiness or future suffering, depending on whether the action was positive or negative.

at the point of death, whatever karma the person has accumulated decides which of six realms the spirit is reborn into: according to buddhists, if a human does not obtain nirvana or enlightenment, as it is known, the person cannot escape the cycle of death and rebirth and is reborn into one of the six possible states beyond this our present life, these being in order from the highest to lowest;
 
heaven. in buddhism there are thirty seven different levels of heaven where beings experience peace and long lasting happiness.


human life.  in buddhism, beings can be reborn into human life over and over, either wealthy or poor, beautiful or not, and of course into every other state imaginable.  what we get is a result of the karma that we have brought with us from previous existences.


asura. a spiritual state of demi-gods but not the happy state experienced by the gods in the heavens above this state.  the demi-gods are consumed with jealousy, because unlike humans, they can clearly see the superior situation of the gods in the heavens above them.

hungry ghost. this spiritual realm is for those who committed excessive amounts of evil deeds and who are obsessed with finding food and drink which they cannot experience and thus remain unsatisfied. they exhaust themselves in their constant fruitless searching.


animals. this realm is visible to humans and it is where the spirits of humans are reborn if they have killed animals or have committed a lot of other evil acts.  animals do not have the freedom that humans would experience due to their being constantly hunted by humans, farmed, used in farming, and for entertainment.


hell. this realm is not visible to humans. beings born there experience much the same nastiness as those that a christian who believes in such a place might conceive of experiencing. those with a great deal of negative karma can remain in such places for eons of time.


buddhists believe that none of these places are permanent locations for us.

so, how do we prepare for death? it is really simple: just have a positive and compassionate outlook on life. always be aware of the impermanence of life and have a loving attitude towards all living things.

  we all know that we’ll die eventually. subtle clues abound around us! we can see our death coming long before its arrival. we notice impermanence in the changes we see every day all around us and we experience most intimately as we age and sense the wistfulness that goes with the recognition that our youth is past. people have an instinctive fear of death. the fear of death stems from the fear of ceasing to exist and losing ones identity and place in this world.

the bottom line is that if we bring happiness to people, we will be happy.  if we create suffering, we will experience suffering either in this life or in a future one. it seems very simple.

that’s all that i know.

through a day

my days are defined by many people and many experiences. this tracks a days points through the music or spoken word i was attending to - or which was attending to me !!

the cinematic orchestra - dawn



what was said to the rose - written by rumi - spoken by coleman barks



chick corea "crystal silence" - a song i listened to before falling asleep many times in high school . . . .



brian eno "by this river" - a languid, melancholy, rainy-day, afternoon song . . .



the beatles "a day in the life" . . . i always loved the orchestral wind-up in this song. it offered a glimpse of something i couldn't articulate at the time but i see it as a sort of potential - a possibility - that goes well beyond the players . . . it's describing an otherness . . .


brian eno - "an ending (ascent)" . . . i love kind music before i sleep. "kind" for me is a sensation of care, that quality that accompanies moments of purposeful nurturing.

time for a cream pie fight

hot sports plane

recent changes in the f.a.a.'s definition of what constitutes an airplane, have opened the doors for designers to create machines that address the very different needs of pilots in the twenty-first century.

a beautiful example of this change has been created by the people at icon aircraft. integrating the more successful features and thinking behind high-end automotive design with cutting-edge aircraft design, icon has created a plane that allows novice pilots to step into the magical world of flight with the primary purpose being the use of plane as a means to see the world in a wholly different way.

proud owner kirk hawkins is seen and heard here speaking about his extraordinary company and its pride and joy . . .


here's the plane on its first flight . . .

i can't fly a plane, but if i could i'd love to have one of these little beauties . . .



and then i might be able to experience some of these experiences . . .

the best of the vancouver film school shorts

the vancouver film school has produced an extraordinary number of really clever and imaginative short films. there are way too many to show here but a morning's perusal of what is avaliable have revealed these to be my favourites so far . . .

first up is zack matthew's "the switch" . . . . a play on the old adage 'curiousity killed the cat' - and then some . . . . if you'd like to see and hear a short interview with zack then . . . give this a peek

lloyd colaco's granny's groove gives a very brief look at what might happen if you found the right pair of shoes . . .

dewi sari's "not forgotten" is a humorous look at life on both sides of the pearly gates . . .

vishal parasher has assembled a clever film entitled "the balloon" that remarkably pulls together charlie chaplin and marcel marceau!

my favourite of my favourites is jospehine gutianjo's "fish wish" . . .

on such an evening

wordsworth on such an evening in 1818 wrote:

"composed upon an evening of extraordinary splendour and beauty"

no sound is uttered,--but a deep
and solemn harmony pervades
the hollow vale from steep to steep,
and penetrates the glades.
far-distant images draw nigh,
called forth by wondrous potency
of beamy radiance, that imbues,
whate'er it strikes, with gem-like hues!

my dad said that his photography club had a sort of rule around depicting the contrails of jets in their photographs. i guess that's another reason i don't belong to clubs!!!

images of mars' surface

i love the images pouring in from mars. like huge abstract paintings, these images describe a landscape that has endured considerable change through a range of forces not unknown to earth.

periodic layering in becquerel crater, mars


microscopic image of scavenged particles


sand dunes in nirga vallis


sand dunes in kaiser crater


wirtz dunes

extraordinary car model creator will neely

i can still recall the magic of assembling car modles when i was a kid. the models i made were fairly stock and were usually what we would call "classic" cars like dueenbergs or bentleys. my brother was more inclined towards the chuck barris type models with their hot rod styling and show car features.

more recently i have graduated to the die cast models and favour the exotics and the "one-offs".

model designer and builder will neely takes that whole world one big step further!


will neely straddles all those worlds with his creations which are decidely "classic" but are also "exotic one-offs" in their own right. the fact that he creates each one from nothing, elevates him above my own experience of model building. will's interest and skill stems from his childhood and eventually through his working life. if you want more detail then read this.

for me, i am happy to simply admire the extraordinary skill and craftsmanship that has gone into projects such as this, his most recent effort - completed in early 2008. it is a car very much like they built in the early days of hot rodding, when machines were simply stripped down to make them as light as possible and souped up engines were shoe-horned into place. then they would take them to the nearest dry lake or the longest stretch of straight road to see how fast they could go.

cherilyn martin

much like the work of els van baarle who i featured here a little while ago, cherilyn martin is really inside the notion that when things fall apart, when they deteriorate or decay, they carry a subtle but powerful beauty that somehow speaks more deeply than when they were shiny and new.

each artist has found their inspiration in taking the essence of those crumbling or ancient artifacts and transferring the details - the rust, the flaking, the exposed layering - and redefining it in terms of a similar layering of materials and tiny objects embedded in the material field on which they cast their designs, be it cloth or paper.

there is a deep and sensual presence in the placement of colour and form that speaks of a more poignant and emotive relationship. one in which the viewer is asked to dwell and then immerse themselves in the moments and the details.

cherilyn says of her work:
"a fascination with the juxtaposition of buildings and ruins in landscape, the superimposition of form, has led to
the type of monumental layering found in many of my pieces.
layering is a fundamental element in my work. using the basic concept of the quilt - the layering of fabrics - panels are constructed and in turn layered to give depth of composition.
exploiting the tactility of thread and stitch, to interpret surfaces ravaged by time and the elements, is imperative to my work. In turn the layering of stitchery adds a further dimension whilst exploring surface texture."

here is what cherilyn has to say about her embroideries . . . "having learnt to embroider before learning to write it seems almost inevitable that I have chosen embroidery as a means of artistic expression. i currently use combinations of both hand and machine stitchery, layering line, colour and texture to create rich surfaces in which concepts of time/experience/emotion are embodied."

here are some details from her embroideries . . .

black composition 1 . . .



black composition 2



cherilyn has this to say about her paperworks . . . "paper, just as seductive as fabric, offers endless opportunities for surface design and structural manipulation. i am currently concentrating on the use of paper as "surface", layering with mixed media to build tactile surfaces with hidden meanings. this method of working has forced me to reconsider my approach to the use of both paint and stitch."

waterlilies 1



waterlilies 2



to see more of cherilyn martin's work then visit her homepage.

the winter boulevard

winter in the boulevard

the frost has settled down upon the trees
and ruthlessly strangled off the fantasies
of leaves that have gone unnoticed, swept like old
romantic stories now no more to be told.

the trees down the boulevard stand naked in thought,
their abundant summery wordage silenced, caught
in the grim undertow; naked the trees confront
implacable winter’s long, cross-questioning brunt.

has some hand balanced more leaves in the depths of the twigs?
some dim little efforts placed in the threads of the birch?—
it is only the sparrows, like dead black leaves on the sprigs,
sitting huddled against the cerulean, one flesh with their perch.

the clear, cold sky coldly bethinks itself.
like vivid thought the air spins bright, and all
trees, birds, and earth, arrested in the after-thought
awaiting the sentence out from the welkin brought.

d.h. lawrence 1916

resource revival

i've sent this link to several of my bike buddies but it really deserves the wider audience that the golden fish blog draws! resource revival has taken the "reuse" element of the reduce reuse recycle triad and applied it to "dead" bike parts.

founder graham berg puts the humble origins of this very cool idea this way: "i got a flat tire while biking to my recycling job. that inner tube became a cradle for my stereo speakers and after three years of tinkering with other ideas resource revival was born in 1994.
now we collect tons of discarded bicycle parts every year from bike shops all over the united states. we clean them using mild detergents, sort them into more categories than you can possibly imagine, and craft them into the cool products you see on our website.
our mission is to create innovative products from recycled materials, to provide meaningful, living wage jobs, and to have fun. we envision a sustainable future where commerce flourishes in a world powered by renewable energy, and where consumers are conscious of the origin of the food they eat, the energy they consume, and the products they buy.
buying recycled products "closes the loop" and helps keep used parts out of landfills. it also keeps products made from new materials from being made in the first place."

i couldn't have said it better myself, which is why i didn't!!

without a doubt, my favourite products out of resource revival are their clocks... here's a little one cashing out at thirty dollars . . . and a larger version cashing out at eighty eight dollars. if (like me) you are one half bike geek and one half computer geek, you may find this "hybrid" clock more to your liking . . . reasonably priced at thirty six dollars, this puppy is made from a recycled bicycle sprocket and recycled computer hard drive.
my oldest boy likes the desk pendulum clock - $88.00 so a bit on the pricey side but still a fine design!!

there's lots more to be seen and had so drop by resource revival!!

treasure island parts fourteen and fifteen

yer've tasted the brine and the rum and smelt the gunpowder for nigh on two weeks now matey, and per'aps yer ready fer an ending o' sorts. well it's yer lucky day 'cause here's the grand ending as ben gunn brings the good guys into his secret cave where the treasure lies gleaming and full of promise of a life of idleness, good food and whatever else you can imagine!!!

part fourteen of treasure island . . .


part fifteen of treasure island . . .i hope you've enjoyed this ripping yarn as much as i have!!!!




!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

have you visited my other blog?

visitors to the the golden fish might like to know that this blog has a brother . . . sister . . . friend over in flow. it's one other piece of the golden fish puzzle. pay it a visit and see if there's anything there for you.

"flow" publishes twice a week.

“the sole pleasure of the world is its evanescence.” hassan shushud

possessed

today i'm going to follow up on a thought-thread from yesterday's post in which i referenced my growing awareness of the volume of "stuff" that has accrued to me over the course of my life. i have been slowly but surely giving away or selling much of what i have accumulated but it is a journey that is barely begun.

my most recent and most painful letting go was four boxes of highly-prized vinyl. the last of a huge collection of vinyl records that have been slowly disappearing into the ether that is the used record store my friend tim runs.

today's entry is a documentary in which the lives - specifically the obsessions- of a group of four hoarders are examined. to outsiders, these people may seem strange or possibly even troubled. but inside each of us is a similar capacity and i think that when you watch this, you will find yourself empathizing with their dilemma.

the film questions whether hoarding is a symptom of mental illness or a revolt against the material recklessness of consumerism. the burning question - and one that has tremendous timeliness for many after the excesses of the season just passed, is, when does collecting become hoarding and why do possessions exert such an influence on our lives? why is it that some people become more discriminating in terms of the volume of what they possess, while others become more discriminating in terms of what they possess?

"possessed" . . . directed by martin hampton and released in 2008 . . .

treasure island part thirteen

har har harrrrrrr matey, finally long john grabs the bull by the horns - or something and gets under way in the search for the treasure. smart little jimmy hawkins manages to be a big part of the discovery meaning that he has a chance at a share - or maybe more . . . . there's danger and skullduggery and even ben gunn who throws a little bit of a curve into the whole plan.
part thirteen of treasure island . . .

unpacking takeshi teruya

as i get older and become more and more aware of the long tail of objects that have accrued to me, i realize how little i actually need. in fact 'need" becomes a term that i am examining more and more closely to determine how much of it is braided with the term 'want'. understandably, almost predictably after my dad's flying away, i have become much more motivated to release the many 'things' that clutter my home and my field of vision - both internally and externally.
the artwork of takeshi teruya resonates with me (and likely not in the way he would have anticipated) with its clustering of objects at the end of a long tail. take for example this work entitled : "split echoes drawn by the day-to-day beacon (geographies returned to over time)". drawing together spraypaint, gouache, pencil, ink and cut paper collage on paper . . .





or the even more visually stunning . . . "harnessing of abandoned markers turned to signs (slippery mechanism)" again melding spraypaint, gouache, pencil, ink and cut paper collage on paper.





much as in my own life, a quick glance at teruya's work would reveal clutter but it is in the closer examination that the fractal detail of the clutter ascends from the blur of the collective and makes for itself such an astonishing and intricate testament to what we hold onto.