Coney Island

I went to New York for mixed reasons. Running from, running to. Bad flight and late arrival.

Q agreed to go to Coney Island with me on Friday. I had not been there since 1975. This would be its last summer. It would be torn down at the end of August. I wanted to photograph it again, better. Q said we should go early. We were there by eight. And we wondered why. We walked the boardwalk by shuttered stands, shut down rides. Some of the operators were just waking up, getting out of the cars in which they had been sleeping. They looked rough.


Few people were about. Most of them were elderly. We looked for a place to eat, but nothing was open. We went into a Russian restaurant. People were eating, but the waitress told us that they were not open. We left the boardwalk and went to the main avenue of Brighton Beach. Russian. The only things open at nine in the morning were liquor stores and beauty parlors.


We made our way back across a park. There was some sort of festival about to begin with a stage, games, music. A fellow with a microphone was asking everyone if they were having a good time. Then a band began to play.

Now Q and I are very romantic, liberal, and caring people, but we are also a bit rough, especially when we are together, and our talk is full of unrighteousness. One of us said, “What in the hell is going on at this time in the morning? Must be a bunch of retards.” And no kidding, as we approached, it came to us that something wasn’t right. There were giants and dwarfs, and people just weren’t moving normal. The band was playing Israeli music. Many of the men had Hasidic curls and stringy, untrimmed beards. It was some sort of festival for the Jewish handicapped. We stood in embarrassed wonder watching people run about the large, open park, throwing Frisbees and kicking balls, all orchestrated by middle-eastern melodies.

Esa einai el heharim,
Me’ayin me’ayin yavo ezri
Esa einai el heharim,
Me’ayin me’ayin yavo ezri

I stood there with my camera. It was a scene out of an Arbus essay, but I couldn’t do it.


“C’mon, let’s get out of here. Holy shit, holy shit.”

As we stepped onto the boardwalk, one of us screamed, “What a fucking place. It’s awful, awful. What do these people do but drink and get coifed and go to retard festivals.”

There was a woman walking in front of us holding a boy’s hand. They walked slowly, purposefully. No, no, no, it couldn’t be! The boy was not right. Something was wrong with him. My body was rigid with horror and fear. I hoped helplessly that they did not speak English.


“They didn’t turn around. They don’t know who said that,” one of us said with great remorse.

“Oh, yea, a big fucking mystery, that.”


Now there were people beginning to mill about. The stands were raising their shutters. Busloads of school children were going to the aquarium. The chill air began to warm, the breeze to die. One of us bought a hotdog at Nathans.


The day before, there had been a demonstration by protestors wanting to save the amusement park. The beaches opened the next day. So did the Burlesque and Freak museum. I had come especially to see that. We were wrong. We had come too early. We had missed everything.

Scanning, Scanning

Scanning, scanning late into the night, into the early morning. I can’t speed up the machine. Slow, slow, listening to music, long, long, scanning with hope, false hope. The scanning does not transform it. “Why are you using film,”I am asked. Romantic, I guess. Feels good until now. Scanning, scanning.

I went to NYC leaving trouble behind, thinking to make photos to compliment the ones from ’75. But then, I took photographs all the time. I had been doing nothing but taking photograhs for three solid months. Now, I don’t take a photograph for months.

We do best what we do most.

I am still scanning, scanning, scanning. Futile.

Man Up

I ran into my friend today.

“Hey,” he said, “when you gonna put up those New York pictures?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I’m pretty disappointed.”

“By what?”

“My talents,” I admitted. “Or the lack thereof. I took eleven rolls of film and I don’t think I have five photos I want to show, and those don’t really say much. I don’t know what went wrong. Everything looked good in the viewfinder. In my imagination, maybe. It’s just all crap.”

“Yea,” he chimed in, “you know I’m your friend, so don’t take this wrong, but you haven’t been putting up such good stuff lately. I mean what was that shit yesterday? The phone and the dice? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? It didn’t even look good. And you’re not telling stories any more, either. And what in the hell were you thinking putting up those silly flowers on Mother’s Day? I mean you must be sitting down to pee. I went to one of the sites you link on your website this morning, that guy from Australia. He has the right fucking idea. Man Up! But don’t get me wrong. I like your site. I’m learning a lot from it for when I put mine up.”

“When’s that going to be?” I asked without any real interest, thinking only about what he had just said.

“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot going on right now.”

“You back with your girlfriend?”

“No. Listen, I gotta go.”

“OK. See you.”

It’s good to have friends, I guess. I’m sure he is right in many ways. I’ll have to let it sink in.

Secrets About Secrets

In New York, I learned what Diane Arbus meant when she said that "a photograph is a secret about a secret." Or at least what I think she meant. I will share my understanding later.

I will have scanned New York photos by tonight and have many tales to tell. I hope.

Here is some silliness. I bought a LensBaby Macro kit. Everyday objects, things you will find around the house. Just learning. I will find some better subjects.

But remember, don't gamble, drink, and then call people you know.

Melancholy in the City

I'll have tales, but not until I develop my film. NYC in spring. I have had the weather.


Today, the Met and wandering on my own. I'll take the Melancholy of a man alone. There are worse things.

No Time For Tales

I forget how big NYC is. It gets compressed in memory. I forget how expensive it is, too. Walk. Shoot. Eat. Drink. I have a Coney Island tale, but not until I process the photos.



I'll post later. No time for tales right now.

NYC Again

Flight delays, sitting in airports, sitting on runways. Nine hours to reach Manhattan. Then good Thai restaurant, good whiskey bar, and a good night's sleep.

The morning is clear and beautiful. East Village. Coffee. Everything lay ahead.

Coney Island of the Mind

I'm going to Coney Island tomorrow to see it before it is gone. I have a lot of photos of it circa 1975, but as you know if you read this, all that is left are the proofsheets. Back then, it was a blighted zone, as was NYC (see "Midnight Cowboy", 1969). I don't know what to expect. Everywhere I go looks like someplace else now. Like biodiversity, cultural diversity is disappearing at an alarming rate. I wrote something about this over at another fellow's site, All The Dumb Things. He is another guy playing around with his past and present, an Australian Hellboy.

Fingers crossed.

Pictures and Politics

"You never do any political stuff on your blog. I'm surprised."

"Not overtly. You have your site up yet?"

"No. Work has been consuming me. Brutal. Since my girl and I split up, I have my nights, but I haven't felt like doing anything. I don't want to go out, but sitting home alone is starting to get to me."

"You start drinking again?"

"Yea, a little. I read your blog and saw it was the full moon. I think I drank a lot. Maybe if I had something to do at night like writing a blog, you know. . . . "

"Writing never kept me from drinking."

He actually looked thinner than the last time I saw him, but that could be from stress. I wonder if he will try to be political when he writes?

Morning After Full Flower Moon

A moon named "Full Flower" should be more gentle and sweet. I should not have mentioned Rimbaud in her presence. And the lyrics on the picture are wrong. The last word should be "tossed." Neil Young.

Full Flower Moon--Night

The moon is up. Little girls grow big. I can't find a poem to post. Look to Rimbaud. Lunar excitations, embellishments. Luminance. Souls rise. Tonight.



Full Flower Moon.

Full Flower Moon--Day

Tonight is May's Full Moon, the Full Flower Moon. I'm hoping for a little good magic, some lunar enlightenment.

Peru: Revised

I made a mess of the last two postings, but I have fixed them.  Bad juju.  

Peru: "Amazonas" (Pt. 9)

See "Brando, Parts 1,2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 Below


Later that afternoon, returning from the market, we were walking back along the Avenida, when suddenly I heard loud, husky voices barking “Amozonas, Amozonas.” It was a group of soldiers dressed in black standing on the steps of the National Bank, holding automatic weapons. They were pointing and laughing our way.

“What the hell!?” I looked to Brando for direction. He puffed himself up and waved a hand like John Wayne in a Memorial Day parade.

“What are they saying?” I asked.

“They are yelling Amazons. I guess because we’re big.”

Then I realized where we were. “Nope,” I said. “Look across the street. That’s where the Italian had his cart set up. They must have seen the whole thing.”

The soldiers were still looking and laughing. “I’m glad it’s OK with them.”

Back at the Plaza, we ran into the rest of our group. They looked concerned.


Remember that fellow with whom we had tea at the café the first day,” asked one of the women. “We just saw him. He came up yelling and crying. He said you broke his fingers. What the hell happened?”

Brando and I looked at one another. I don’t think it was possible. I didn’t feel anything pop.

“No way,” I assured her.

“His hand was all wrapped up,” she retorted. “He said you choked him, too.”

For some reason, they seemed to sympathize with him. I couldn’t understand why.

“Well, I don’t know,” I offered. “He seems dangerous.”

And with that, we went our ways, agreeing to meet for dinner.

“Did you break his fingers,” Brando asked me.

“I don’t think so,” I answered, “but we’d better keep our eyes open for him.

Amazonas. The word translates in varying ways. Some of them are not very flattering.

Peru: Bad Behavior (Pt. 8)

See "Brando, Parts 1,2,3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 Below


Next morning, I met Brando for breakfast at the Piccolo. He said we needed to meet with the guide who would take us on a three day tour of the Urubomba River, but after that, we would have the day free.

Etienne was a young, blonde Peruvian of French descent, and he was all smiles. Outdoor guides were like rock stars in Peru at that time, and everyone wanted to say hello. It was evident that he enjoyed the life. He would see to everything, he said. “just show up tomorrow at eight and I will show you the wonders of the river.” And other wonders, too, I intuited. Money exchanged, business concluded, he was off to get some sleep. His night, it seems, had been long.



We wandered toward the train station down the Avenida del Sol, stopping in various shops along the way. Brando was known in many of the shops, but now I think that was partly by design. Then, however, I was still in awe of things and at every step, I felt a thriving vitality and heroism I hadn’t suspected. And that was exactly what I was feeling when suddenly I saw a face before me that I recognized. It took me moment to place the tall fellow in the llama wool balaclava and woolen scarf dressed like a native and selling trinkets from a little stand. IT WAS THE ITALIAN!

“Hey, Brando,” I yelled. “Look who it is.”

Brando turned with bright eyes and a smile, but as he approached, he seemed confused. He looked at me as if to ask who is it.

By now, the Italian had recognized us and was beginning to move, so I approached him rapidly. “It’s the fucker who called us dogs,” I said, and suddenly the Italian reached for his pocket. He was bigger than I and I was scared, so quickly I grabbed his arm, thinking he was going for a knife. He was strong and tried to pull away, and without thinking further, I twisted his hand back hard as I could, bringing him to a standstill. Next thing I knew, Brando had the Italian’s scarf twisted tightly around his neck. The Italian’s face was growing red, then scarlet. If I remember correctly, Brando was lecturing him on manners.



“This is bad,” I whispered to the Italian, “really bad. If I were you, I’d tell him I was sorry.”

The Italian’s tried, but he was not able to breathe right and it came out all crumbly, so with greater effort, he tried again.

“I’m thorry.”

And with that, Brando let him go and turned on his heals. Now it was my turn.

“I think you were lucky,” I said as I gave him a shove. I didn’t want him close to me when I let go.

As I turned to go, I noticed for the first time the large crowd that had gathered there on the broad avenue. They stepped back giving me a wide birth, but wherever I looked, people were smiling. I guessed that they didn’t like the Italian shyster, either.

I hurried and caught up with Brando. The day was especially bright, the sky surreal. Brando and I, still rocketing from our adrenaline cocktails, walked quickly, speaking in short phrases and monosyllables wanting to leave the scene behind.

"I told you we'd see him again."

Peru: The American (Pt. 7)

See "Brando, Parts 1,2,3, 4, 5, and 6 Below


I wanted to stay for the killing of the llama by the High Priest, but I was too far away to see much. The people around me said that the Priest didn’t actually kill the llama any more. They had put a stop to that. Now it was all simulated. Smaller towns all around the country, though, were celebrating Inti Rami as well, and in many of them the celebration was more authentic. In some remote mountain towns, they said, things could get dangerous.


I was done. Simulated sacrifices and reenactments. I might as well go to mass.

Walking back to town, I chatted as best I could with strangers, smiling, gesturing. All the antiquities were new to me, the deep ultra-violet of the sky, the warm sun and the cool air. I was happy.

I waited outside the Piccolo, nervous, uncertain. Surely she would not come, I told myself. And apocrophally, just as I prepared to leave, she arrived, bright eyes and broad smile.

“Helloo,” she crooned in German/English.

“Hi.”


Conversation was difficult. I asked obvious things and she tried to reply. She had studied English in school, she said, but she had never really used it since. She struggled to remember words, saying them in German, then Spanish. She was a printer working for a German company. She had been in Peru for a year. She ordered a milkshake. I had read about the dangers of contracting tuberculosis from dairy in Peru. She watched me put an iodine tablet in my soup. “What are you doing?” I tried to tell her, but she was laughing wildly. “Americans,” she giggled. “Why are you all so paranoid?” “I don’t want to get sick,” I offered meekly. She simply shook her head.

When we left the café, dark was falling. She took me on a tour, up and down streets off the square, past local shops and restaurants and bars without signs or indicators. The aroma, the sounds were not those of the Plaza. Ancient stone, small wooden balconies, an occaisional motorbike.


“It is getting late,” she said. “I must work in the morning. Does your room have a shower?”

Odd, that. “Yes, but the hot water is only on for an hour in the mornings.”

“I live up the hill,” she pointed, “and the water pressure has been bad. I have not had a shower for a while. Would you mind if I used yours?”

My small room was not heated. The water was frigid. And she showered. I sat on my bed and shivered until she popped out running a towel over her short cropped hair, smiling. “It feels good to be clean,” she said.

It was late now, and I knew I would have to walk her home. She lived a long way across town, high up on the opposite side of the mountain that surrounded the city. And I would have to walk back alone with every likelihood that I would get lost or worse.

“Listen,” I started, “would you like to stay here tonight? Just to sleep, I mean, just so we don’t have to walk back in the dark.” I was afraid I looked like a creep when I was merely lazy and perhaps a coward.

“OK.”

It was warm beneath the big wool blankets. I would not have to walk that night.

Peru: The Sacred and the Profane (Pt. 6)

See "Brando, Parts 1,2,3, 4 and 5 Below


The road to Sacsayhuamain began on the square and went up what would become known to me as “Piss Alley.” These alley-like streets were filled with people and the smell of excrement. A small drainage rut ran down the middle. All along the way, men and woman squatted beside walls and relieved themselves so that we had to be careful where we stepped. Villagers whose lives were lived in huts without electricity or running water, in huts as their ancestors had lived for thousands of years, where they sustatined themselves raising sheep and llama and growing corn and potatoes, did not stay in hotels. In close quarters, you could smell the dampness of their wool clothing. Wool hats, wool serapes. The money from the restaurant had the smell. I would come to love that smell, the people.


Brando was right about the festival. It wasn’t much if you were not a believer, if you were attending only to watch a spectacle. There were bleachers set up for tourists and dignitaries, I guess, with a pricetag attached. I sat on a crowded grassy knoll for awhile watching the festivities, but it was not that about which I was thinking. Of course. The Sacred and the Profane. I couldn’t wait to get back to town.

Peru: Winter Solstice (Pt. 5)

See "Brando, Parts 1,2,3, and 4 Below)


The next morning was Inti Rami, the Winter Solstice, and we met at the Plaza for breakfast. The crowds had already formed and were making their way to Sacsayhuamain where the sacred celebration would take place. Brando would not be going. He had gone many times before, he said, and he wasn’t interested. The whole show was like a Disney production put on for tourist, but he said we should attend. “You have to see it once.” He wanted to hang around town and look up a woman he knew. My Spanish was poor, but I figured I’d get around alright. All we had to do was follow the crowd which was already streaming up the hill. The others in the group began to wander around the makeshift stalls looking at the wares that were everywhere for sale, llama wool weavings, musical instruments, silver jewelry, chicha.  Unknown foods cooking on brazier’s, hypnotic melodies from local bands, the dull roar of the other languages-- a conspiracy against my foreign senses.

And suddenly she was before me, the German girl from the day before. She was tall and wild with big eyes and a carnivore’s mouth. I smiled nervously. “Hello,” I offered and received a hello back. I asked her in English if she was going up the hill to the festival. Her English was as bad as my Spanish. Well, no, not as bad. I tried asking again in Spanish. She laughed. I wasn’t sure what I had said. Somehow, though, through pantomime and a polyglot of desire we began to make ourselves understood. Yes, she said, she was going. I don’t remember much else but the way she looked standing there in the Plaza, a seeming foot taller than the local crowd, her broad, clean face more familiar than the Incan faces that looked up at us but foreign, too, alien in language and culture, more worldly than I.

We could meet later, then, here, at the Piccolo? I hoped. “Yes,” she said. Yes, we would meet here at the Piccolo. Petra. Her name was Petra.

As she prepared to leave, she smiled and kissed me on the cheek, and just as she had the day before, she spun on her heels and was gone.

Q6 on The Road

The great people over at F Blog just put up another in the series of Road photos from 1975. Sean Cusick wrote the essay that accompanies it. Thanks Marcin.

Easy

"I went to your website," he said. "I think I'm going to start one. I'm not going to use the same set up as you, though. It's too dark. It looks like one of those pornography sites."

"Well, good luck."

"Yea, I've got a lot to say. Since my girlfriend and I broke up, I'm free to start writing about the crazy time after my divorce. That was surreal."

"How's the drinking thing."

"It's alright, but I still haven't lost any weight. I feel better in the mornings, but the night's another thing."

"I'll be looking forward to reading your blog," I said.

"Sure. I'm going to send you some stuff soon that you can post. You can link to my site."

"OK."

It's just that easy.

Fair Times

“You taking pictures of cows?” Standing before me was a young person of gender-neutral age. “Uh, sort of,” I said, feeling out of place.


After writing my circus and carnival pieces, I thought I would revisit the fair to see what it was like now. It wasn’t much, and I ended up spending most of my time at the agricultural exhibits. As I walked around the tents, though, taking pictures of cows and horses and goats pigs like I’d never seen one before, hardened crackers, farmers and ranchers, looked at me like they’d never seen one of me before. Disdain seeped from their very big pores. And so I fumbled, bumped, and stumbled from exhibit to exhibit awkwardly with my cameras, crouching down to get an angle, stepping in cow shit from time to time, feeling their heavy eyes and smirks upon me.

“Do you have any animals here,” I asked.

“No, I used to exhibit, but I gave it up,” he replied like an old man who had retired and was now resting on his laurels.

“Here, let me take a picture of you with these cows,” I said, waiting to be arrested or beaten. We stood there in silence.

“You know the High Green Ranch?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“That’s some might good land,” he said with a quick and certain nod.

He seemed to want to talk, but this wasn't the 70’s. You can’t just talk to strange kids any more. You end up on TV. So I said, “Well, dude, you take it easy,” and started to move away, wondering if “dude” was the right term.

“OK, see you.”

I moved over to a big ring where handlers in white lab coats were showing goats to a group of judges. I was framing up a shot when I felt a tug on my sleeve. I looked over. It was the kid. He was holding out his hand to me, palm up.

“Here,” he said. “This is for you.”

In his fingers he held a huge freshwater snail shell. I picked it up gingerly, turning it around before my eyes. What the hell does this mean, I asked myself in confusion. I’d watched too much “Carnivale,” perhaps. I was waiting for some apparition, for his eyes to turn to fire.

Then sweet as unfettered youth, he turned and skipped away.



The people standing around me stared as if they expected some explanation, weak grins framing their faces. I could only shrug. It's all still a mystery to me. These are dark, suspicious times.

The Day is Done

The day is done. I bought my mother flowers and took her to that hippie place my friend told me about. He was rignt; it was good food. My mother liked it. "Well," she ejected, "they just took an old house and turned it into a restaurant." My mother did not feel out of place at all, I think. Everyone wore silly mismatched clothing and had bad haircuts and were slow just like hillbillies. She liked everything we ordered. When I was in college, there were lots of restaurants like this, but then I would never have dreamed of taking my mother to such places. "Are there flax seeds in this," she asked the waiter. "I don't know, but I'll go find out." And off he trotted. Suddenly she was a culinary queen.

It was a better day than if we had done something else, if we had gone to a nicer restaurant and had eaten too much.

Here's a photo of my mother as a young girl running around in a convertible. It looks like she was eating at something akin to the hippie place we went to today.

Happy Mother's Day.

Freedom and Loneliness

"Man, I don't know if I should have quit drinking. I'm not losing any weight. And I broke up with my girl," he whined.

"It takes time," I offered. "Everything does."

"I guess. I mean, its OK and all. Yesterday, I went to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch. It was a real hippie affair, you know, all yellow and orange and green with this colorful tent-like material hanging from the ceiling. I had some tonic--that's what they called it--and some humus and vegetables and crackers. I sat there and read and wrote and I thought, 'I can do anything I like.' It was so good, I went back that night."

"Who'd you go with?"

"Nobody. I went by myself."

"Yea. That's alright. It's good to have your freedom."

As he walked away, I noticed he looked heavier than before.

Delirium Tremens

“I had to quit drinking,” he said. “I’m getting too fat, and I can’t lose weight when I’m drinking. I like to drink, though.”

“How’s that working out for you,” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just started. But I think I had the DTs yesterday. I was at the gym and saw a woman who looked like my mother, but her face was sort of like my aunts. She had all her teeth pulled and doesn’t wear her false teeth all the time, so her mouth has sort of fallen in. But the woman was built like my mother and moved like my mother and was dressed like her in one of those cheap, goofy bright flower shirts over a t-shirt. I’d never seen this woman at the gym before and she certainly didn’t belong with this crowd. I was freakin’ and looking at her and trying to make sense of it all. Then she noticed me staring at her and started to get nervous, so I went back to working out in order to avoid a scene. When I looked for her again, she was gone. I don’t know if she was there or not. You think it was the DTs?”

“You look fine to me.”

Here’s a picture of my mother in Michigan the year before I was born, just married, maybe still in love.

I Have Tales To Tell

I'm putting up two posts today and will start working on some narratives this weekend. I have tales to tell but no time to tell them. Perhaps I can work on them this weekend.

The Hippie and the Pixie

I went to NYC for the first time in 1975. It was the end of my Road Trip around the U.S. I arrived by bus, so my first vision of the city came as I exited Penn Station onto 42nd St. It was just after noon and the streets were crowded. I wore jeans and a flannel shirt and hiking boots and had a bright orange backpack. I probably didn't look like a native. But I hadn't walked a block when a pretty girl took hold of my arm. "You want a date," she said. She looked like a secretary on her lunch break. "What?" She repeated for me as if I might be slow, "Do--you--want--a--date?" I was slow alright. "Oohhhh!" I managed. Seeing that I had come to some awareness, she added quickly, "It's twenty for me and five for the room." I chuckled at that and said, "Hey, hippies don't pay for sex." And quick as a pixie, she giggled and let go of my arm. She had simply disappeared.

I didn't get a photograph.

Dancing at Bloomies

Coffee. Hurry. Work.