Several bits of astonishing news today…

Andy Brouwer reports that he is finally finished with his years-in-the-making book To Cambodia With Love, which is being published in a month or two by ThingsAsian Press of San Francisco, my old hometown.

The book is sure to be of the utmost quality and authority due to both Andy's impossibly deep, wide and electrified knowledge and affection for all things Cambodian and to the publisher's impeccable standards and sensibility. Oh, and there's an essay of mine in there too.

They're the folks who published my book To Myanmar With Love. Its not really my book, its their book and it was edited (with contributions by) by Morgan Edwardson, a very good guy I know who shares my love of the Burmese people and culture and who was kind enough to ask me to supply photos for the book. But my name is on the cover and so sometimes – and I believe that you should forgive me for this without hesitation or remorse – I refer to it as my book even though I didn't really do much work on it.

The book also includes a couple of essays that I wrote.

Speaking of which, the book I mean… here is a little mini-review of the book on a cool-assed-looking website called BANG!

In other news, my almost not even embarrassing anymore Steve Goodman Photography website is coming along very nicely and soon (I've got my fingers crossed) I won't have much more work to do except for freshening it up once or twice a month. Then… more time to work on photography projects and not website development projects

It cost me a bundle because I chose to do it myself, not paying close attention to the fact that I really don't know that much about buidling a website using WordPress.

Sometimes, if you really want to get things done, it is imperative that one ignores the facts, even really big important ones, if one wants to get something significant accomplished. After all, if we let our mere lack of experience stop us from attempting to do something where would be be today? Not sitting pretty and living large I'd be willing to wager.

It took a long time with a lot of false starts, dead-ends and an enormous amount of disciplined focus and concentration. I learned a lot and I like that a whole bunch.

Same goes for ^The Hellhounds blog,  which I think turned out nicely as a fun little example of tongue-in-cheek branding and promotion.

Of course these blogs and websites and things like them will always be works-in-progress, owing mainly to my steadfast and deeply-seated beleif that everything in life is experimental and therefore temporary. Its just a glaringly obvious addendum to or extrapolation of a central point in the teachings of the Buddha, which – as you probably already know – was that all things must pass since all things are temporary and consequently unstable (though they often appear to be permanent) and subject to radical upheaval and massive unanticipated change.

Life is full of mystery. Or is that misery? Well, I guess its a bit of both - depending on how you look at it – and naturally here at MythCo Publishing (a wholly owend subsidiary of DudeCo Industries) we're always hoping for the best while still bearing in mind that its all one big amazingly improbable experiment and that everything could just go Kablooey at any time… and often does!

Finally, speaking of mystery, misery and  ^The Hellhounds … please come on out to Sharky Bar on Thursday night to see

^The Hellhounds tear into the BLUES

We're gonna be a-wompin' and a-stompin' and we just might pitch you a wang-dang-doodle all night long (well at least until maybe 11:15 or so).

We had a great crowd again last week, which we really appreciate, and it seemed like everyone had a good time. i don;t know for sure becasue I was busy sweating and trying to not break guitar strings.

But I gotta tell you that its too damn hot up there on that stage.

Can I get a Coke please? Lots of ice. Thanks.

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart recently made some music out of astrophysical data about supernovas, short-lived stars in distant galaxies, in an attempt to "sonify" the universe.

One of the scientists who worked with Hart on the “Rhythms of the Universe,”  project said that "What we did is turn it into sound by slowing down the frequency and ‘stretching’ it into an audio form. Both light and sound are all wave forms — just at different frequencies."

Here's a little video from the article with more interesting information.

Yesterday I wrote and published what I think is a very interesting story, with my photos of course. Ostensibly about the glue-sniffers here on the funky streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, but that's not really what the story ended-up being about. You'll have to read it to find out what I mean by that.

If you have the time and interest you can check it out here.

Here's the teaser photo:

Young boy sniffing glue on the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia

That happens a lot and its often how I work. I shoot and shoot and only later, sometimes much later, do I finally discover what the real story is. Well that's life and I'm not complaining. Actually the esential point of this particular story did not reveal itself to me until I sat down and wrote the sucker.

It takes a long time to write. This story is about 1,000 words long and it took me hours and hours. Hard work, not as much fun as taking and processing photos, but quite satisfying once you finaly get the job done. I did git-er-done and there you have it.

And in other news… please stop by Sharkys on Thursday night when The Hellhounds once again take the stage to howl and wail the BLUES.

Should be a real good time with some new songs and some old ones that we repainted and lubed-up at our Sunday afternoon practice session.

Hey now! I go that hacked-to-death website problem licked (all over) and the whole episode turned out to be another one of those blessings in disguise.

So, yes… that means that stevegoodman.com, my professional photography website is not only back up-and-running, it has been refined, reconfigured, rethunk and redone and for the first time I can honestly say that I am very happy with it. Wow.

It took a lot of time, hard work and determination to git-er-done, but it was totally worth it and I learned a lot of good stuff long the way, so the whole miserably goofed-up thing turned out to be entirely positive and valuable. What could be better than that?

In a somewhat related vein, I recently ran across the followng graphic again (I had seen it before and it sprang to mind during a recent conversation with a friend of mine), so I poked aorund on Google and found it to share with my friend (and with you too).

It is at once sad and hilarious and it certainly rings true with anyone who has ever been involved in projects involving lots of different people.

It brilliantly illustrates the many pitfalls of human organizations in dealing with complex problems that are almost always made exponentially worse and more muddled by the vagaries and challenges of human communication.

Let's take a look shall we?

Pretty funny stuff and most people agree that it cleverly captures an all-too-real phenomenon that anyone who has ever worked for a large company or for the government, especially the military, can relate to and validate with their own anecdotal examples.

But that's not why I am brining it up. The interesting and downright pathetic thing is that the gist of the sort of mangled and mismanaged project in the illustration is something that I actually (singlehandedly) did to myself!

It is astonishing and instructive, not to mention being embarassing and profoundly disturbing. Despite all that, I'm managing to take it all in stride and learn from the experience, so just don't you worry about a thing.

Elabloration and commentary is forthcoming and will be published here soon. Unless I can't find the used tire I still need to really finish the job!