perhaps we should return to the days when conservations about ‘like’ were more visceral and simple. here’s an example i recently was privy to while riding the 22 bus line in San Francisco:

Girl w/Pigtails: “I heard Mikey ‘liked’ you from Shawna.”
Girl w/Hello Kitty Backpack: “You mean, ‘LIKE’ like or just(in a drawn out trail of sounds) l~i~k~e?”
Girl w/Pigtails: “L~I~K~E~S YOU!”
Girl w/Hello Kitty Backpack: “Gah-ROSS! Let’s beat him up!”

I didn’t even know that there was a specific term, coined by André Gide, for what I do all the time in my murals: “mise en abyme”! I will promptly adopt that phrase in my vocabulary – thanks for that, too!

A little shoutout for the artists of the murals-in-the-mural that you mention:
- the trompe l’oeil piece was done in the early 80′s by John Wullbrandt at the corner of Hyde and Turk.
- the “little man” is a piece by the world famous brazilian twin artists Os Gemeos, above the Luggage Store gallery (it’s actually huge, but appears small from the street.)
- the mermaid-seahorse represents the artwork of the amazing local painter and papel picado artist Kay Weber, who lives across the street, and I painted him on the ladder painting his own art.

I could go on forever with footnotes on this mural, so I’ll stop there. Last note, and shoutout:
- If you’d like to know the origin of the neighborhood name “Tenderloin” once and for all, I can tell you how to get the most researched and documented answer: go take a TL walking tour with the excellent San Francisco City guide Peter Field (http://www.sfcityguides.org/overview.html), who contributed lots of historical knowledge to this mural, (along with Mark Ellinger, http://upfromthedeep.com , who can also give you plenty back stories on some of the details you mentioned.)

cheers
-Mona

Atheistic scientists were disturbed when they first discovered the big bang, because rather than an eternal universe, with matter as the self-existent reality as they supposed, the universe seemed to be created “ex-nihilo” pointing to a “non-material” cause existing prior to the known universe. Descriptions of a “singularity” are not unlike sectarian descriptions of an immaterial God.

Perhaps more serious, is the notion that we can deny the existence of anything beyond that which we experience. We cannot say that there is nothing beyond space and time anymore than my four-year-old self could say existence ended at the bus stop (the limits of my known universe). And logic favors the idea that something does indeed exist beyond the known universe, or else, from whence did it come?

As scientists peer further and further into space, they continue to see more stuff. I’m reminded of a joke about how “hillbillies” give directions: “Go two farsees and turn right.” A farsee is defined as “far as the eye can see.” Even hillbillies know that existence doesn’t end at the limits of our vision.

Another problem is viewing infinity in terms of space and time at all. Many scientists admit that beyond the dimensions we experience there may be more, and beyond our universe there may be more. They now debate the possibilities of multi-verses and mother universes. Infinity certainly seems possible within these theoretical frameworks, but they are still thinking in terms of space-time. A slight shift in thinking can change everything: singularity NOT as an undefinable mysterious material/immaterial reality, NOT as everything and nothing all at once, NOT an unimaginable enormity in an unimaginably small space, but RATHER as MIND itself. Of course our minds extend beyond our bodies. It’s an easy thing to demonstrate. The post-it note on my computer screen is an extension of mind. A “re-minder” that transcends the space-time of my body. It’s a simple matter for mind to create such transcendent realities because that is what it IS.

Relationships also are “immaterial” and “material” all at once. They don’t fall on our retinas. My relationship with you extends beyond my body and brain. You are not contained within the space-time of my body-brain. And I am not contained within the space-time of yours. Our relationship is not simply a mental representation consisting of so much neuro-chemical reaction. Our relationship exists BETWEEN us, within AND beyond each of us as individuals. Neither of us can point to it, but both of us know without question that it exists.