Au Revoir 2011

(Don't Be Afraid)

I don't know what to say.  The New Year has snuck up on me again.  I knew it was coming, but I've done nothing about it.  I mean, I'm in town and have no plans.  Chances are I'll be in bed when the clock strikes 2012.  I had no love affair with 2011, a monkish year full of work, both at the factory and personal.  The new year seems to hold no great promise.  Perhaps it will for you.

(if this doesn't play on your computer, you can listen to it here)

So he's retired
Lives with his sister in a furnished flat
He's got this suit that
He'll never wear outside without a hat
His hair is white but he looks half his age
He looks like Jimmy Stewart in his younger days.


And honestly, I might be
Stupid to think love is love
But I do
And you've waited so long and
I've waited long enough for you.

My mother's calling
From where she's living up in troy, vermont
She tries to tell me
A father figure must be what I want
I've always thought age makes no difference
Am I the only one to whom that's making sense?


And honestly, I might be
Stupid to think love is love
But I do
And you've waited so long and
I've waited long enough for you.

The day I met him he was raking leaves
In his tiny yard.
Of course I know that
We've only got ten years, or twenty, left
But to be honest
I'm happy with whatever time we get
Depending on which book you read
Sometimes it takes a lifetime to get what you need.


And honestly, I might be
Stupid to think love is love
But I do
And you've waited so long and
I've waited long enough for you.

Keeping It Real

I read an article this morning that told me just how out of touch with "Real America" I am.  Lake Superior State University (a recognized leader in language studies?) released its 37th annual list of words and phrases that it believes should be "banished" from the English language, and it suggests that some classic -- and perhaps hackneyed -- should get the ax" (link).  The word "amazing" topped the list, but "man cave" was up there.

"Man cave?" I wondered thinking it must be code for a vagina?  I'd never heard the term before.  Turns out, as probably most of you must know, it is some sort of male den full of recliners and animal heads and sporting paraphernalia.  If it is so overused, why have I never heard it before?  I don't watch enough t.v., I guess, not enough to hear some of the other top words and phrases like "ginormous" and "baby bump."  I'm assuming you have to watch morning shows or that thing that Whoopee Goldberg is on to hear this language.  I like to use a lot of what I think is silly language, though.   When I read that article, I was like, "Really?"  Then I thought, "Whatever."  'Mos def.  Keeping it real.  I'm just saying.

I don't do much "social networking."  Any, really, other than this blog which is not social networking at all.  I don't have a "real" Facebook page.  I don't twitter.  So getting a text message feels like. . . well. . . social networking.  At least it's social.  And when I was in the hospital this year, the texts I got from friends was rather sweet and comforting.

As I've reported, G.G. has been texting me of late to keep me abreast of her newest romance, and to tell me that she is reading the blog and that I am a shit because I'm making her sound terrible.  I don't tell the story right, she says.  I leave too much out for her liking.  The part where she is wonderful and right, I assume.  What can I say?  She now has firsthand experience with creative first person journalism.  It's all true, just not all the truth there is.

But it has been fun getting her texts, though I loathe to admit it.  I understand why people want to do such things.  It provides something to occupy you at long stoplights.  But yesterday she texted me that that evening, her new boy was going to cook for her.  It was their third consecutive night of dating.  It will not be long now before the texting ceases and my "social network" will be gone.  Which reminds me of a joke.  I failed my first driving test when the officer asked me, "What do you do at a red light?" and I answered, "I don't know. . . listen to music, look around, read my email. . . ."

I hooked up the new iMac yesterday.  Some buyers remorse was inevitable, of course.  I mean, it is just a computer.  I have computers.  But the 27" screen, well, that is really something.  And so after hours and hours and hours of copying applications and files, I sat down late to work on an image for the first time.  Remorse was gone.  What have I been thinking?  That is it posted at the top of the page.

Still--I just wrote you all on my MacBook Pro.  Old habits.  Etc.

Cool Now

She texted me:

"I have a story to tell you."

Oh, no.  I didn't want a text story.

"Call."

She did.  She told me about going out and meeting a guy.  He was cute, sweet, and loving.  She just met him at a bar.

"I've never picked anyone up in a bar," I told her, though it wasn't true.  I did once.  It was everything it should have been.  I was drunk, she was drunk, had blonde hair, and a black, low-cut dress.  It was a bar where the beautiful and famous drink right in my own home town, and I had been broken up with my girlfriend long enough to want to do this.  She drove me the few blocks back to my house at that time.  She had a little sports car with a T-top.  We never made it inside.

I couldn't remember her clearly the next day as she looked something like another girl I had a crush on for a very long time.  In fuzzy memory she was enough like that girl to become that girl.  Oh, I couldn't wait to call.

Her voice wasn't what I remembered, but she invited me to her house for dinner.  Turned out she had a kid.  I went with two bottles of champagne and high hopes.  I should have been drunk when I got there.  She lived by the airport in a apartment complex.  She kept yelling at her son while she cooked.  When I left, I swore that would be the only I did that.

"Good for you," I said.  "Isn't that something."

I reminded her that I hadn't had a date in over a year. I thought I reminded her, but it must have been new information.

"What?!"

Suddenly I was embarrassed.  Certainly there was something wrong with me.  All around people were dating or married, having children, living the American Dream.

"You're becoming a hermit," she said.  "You need to get out."

"Not a hermit," I said.  "A monk."

But I got the chill.  I was a freak, an outsider, something to be avoided and perhaps feared.  I was that man that parents tell their children to avoid.  I could feel people staring though I was in my house alone.  The word "creepy" came to me across the vast expanse.  A man too set in his ways, intransigent.  Hadn't she told me just days before that I didn't dress right, that my hair was a mess?  These things start to add up when no one is telling you some sweet other.

It was almost noon, and I was still sitting around in my pajamas, unwashed, unshaven.  It wasn't a good sign.

And so I decided to go to that most American of institutions--The Mall.  I needed some things, and they were there.  The Mall.  That would be just the thing.  I could see what people look like, what they wear and how they dress, not just the crowd in my little hamlet but real Americans who watch shows like "So You Want to be a Star," and "America Can Sing" and "The Shores of Hoboken"--whatever they are called.  The Mall had it all--The Gap, Urban Outfitters, Banana Republic, American Outfitter, Abercrombie, and a dozen other clothing stores I can't remember.  It even had a Tony Bahamas.

And Holy Jesus, the masses were there.  Is this what happens while I'm at work every day?  Everybody had come, and it was awful.  How could she critique the way I looked?  This was a freak show.  Do you think Brad Pitt wonders if his wardrobe is hip or up to date?  They all moved like they'd just been freed from cages, all jerks and hiccups and twitches.  They all had bags full, I assumed, of "nice" clothes.  But what had happened?  What did they do with them after they bought them?  They weren't wearing them.

I ended up at the Apple Store instead.  A place of refuge, I thought.  But it was unbelievable.  Apparently are no fire codes are enforced at The Mall.  It was impossible to move.  People had packed in like cattle.  I managed to squeeze in among them, though, and found myself standing before a 27" iMac.

"You know," I thought, "you deserve this.  Yes you do.  You work day and night on photos on that tiny ass screen and everybody else has this to surf the internet and download porn.  You're an artist, goddammit, and you work on a computer.  You need this and deserve it.  Yes, you do."

And here is the upside to not having a girlfriend or a wife or kids or anybody but your mother to spend your money on.  And I used that as evidence to convince the jury.  I looked around the store.  People were buying everything in sight.  Big boxes full of Apple products were pouring out the door--iPhones, iPads, Macbooks, and Big Ass iMacs.  Everyone else was doing it, I said to no one.  Do it, buddy, do it.  Do it.  Do it.  Do it.

That was the little devil on my left shoulder.  But the little fellow on my right was putting up a pretty good fight.  He had my mother's voice, a voice shaped by the Great Depression.

"Don't do it, son.  Don't do it.  Nothing good can come of it.  You've got enough.  You've got plenty.  You don't need this.  You do fine with what you've got.  Think about this."

"Hey, can I get some help over here."

This morning, my house is covered with electronic things that need to be put together.  There is the new stereo amp with HDMI ports and two new speakers sitting on the floor by the television that need to be hooked up.  What a pain in the ass that will be, I think.  I read the booklet yesterday.  I am pretty sure I will end up without either a) audio output, or b) cable reception.  I will sit on the floor for hours weeping at the complexity of it all.

And in the study, there stands a new 27" Apple iMac with upgrades out the ass so that it runs like an Indie car on full throttle.  I will spend the rest of my hours trying to get all the programs I use loaded today.  And there will be problems like lost codes or system incompatibilities.  And again I'll weep.

So there it is.  There is my new virility.  Or is it a substitute girlfriend?  Can it be both?  I can see the future, me sitting in front of the big, bright screen with a turbo-action hard drive unshaven in my baggy pajama bottoms and a three day beard working on pictures and pretending I'm an artist.  And I'll text her:

"Am I cool now?"

But I need some advice.  What should I get next, a Harley or a Porsche?

Slower Time, Faded Colors, and Sharper Edges

Tonight I went to the grocery store and bought all the fixings for the A.A. cocktails--cranberry juice, club soda, bitters, tonic.  Losing weight is imperative for many reasons, but one is that I am going to be skiing in Park City in less than a month, and my knees are killing me.  What was I thinking?  I haven't been skiing in fifteen years.  I was drinking when this all happened.  Now I need to lose weight if I am to give my knees any chance at all.

So when I went for sushi tonight, I ordered an iced green tea.

"Back on the wagon again, huh?" my waiter said.

"Yup."

I feel like Philip Marlow.  Everybody knows what I am drinking.

In the afternoon, I went to lunch with my mother.  We had gone to pick out a new stereo amp for my Christmas present, one that had HDMI inputs.  My stereo is perfectly good, but it is too old to support my HD television.  It pisses me off, but what can I do?

On the way there, my mother was telling me where to go.  I got into the left lane to get around an idiot, and she said, "You need to be in the right lane," as if I had no idea where I was.

"You mean to turn?"

"Yes."

"I've got plenty of time to get over."

"Oh, you're one of those who likes to weave in and out of lanes?"

"You bet.  That's why they put one of these on the car."  I patted the steering wheel.

"They gave you a turn signal, too."

"Yes, but I don't need it to change lanes," I said.

"Yes you do."

"Nope," I said.  "Watch this."  I moved over into the right hand lane.

"That's illegal," she said because I hadn't hit the blinker.

"Well, that's another matter," I said, cocky prick winning the point.  But it was a pyrrhic victory, for she hadn't gotten the nuance.

Later, at lunch, I noted how distracting the televisions in the restaurant were.

"Why do they put televisions in restaurants?" I asked her.  It was a rhetorical question.  "Do they think people pick a restaurant based upon their t.v.s?  They don't have any sound!  It is just an image.  You don't even know what's going on.  Do people enjoy that?"

My mother just shook her head.

"And what the hell is that buzz?  Is that supposed to be music?  You can't make it out.  What the hell is that for?"

The day before at lunch with my friend, I was denigrating the restaurant we were in.  It looked nice but it wasn't.

"You're kind of a snob," she said.

"No I'm not."  I am not a snob.

But she insisted, "Yes you are."

"No," I said, I just don't understand why people eat in shitty restaurants.  I drive down the road and there are dozens and dozens of mistakes where people eat every day, and I don't know why they put up with it.  Why do they give them their money?  Things should be beautiful and sensual.  You become what you surround yourself with.  Your environment shapes you."

But I should tread lightly here.  She was a bit miffed about yesterday's entry.  She texted me today.

"Why are you giving me grief?" she wrote.  "I was showing your site to my sister--geeeeezzz."

Now I had to text her back.  I hate texting and don't understand why I must do it when I know someone is with their phone, but that is what people do now.  It is bad form to call someone if they text, a form of social suicide.  So I wrote,

"I wasn't giving you grief.  I avoided that.  You should have read my first two drafts."

"Yes you were.  You didn't give the whole story."

"I didn't give any story.

She was getting the better of me because I am slow at texting.  She was writing two for one.

"I think I like you better when you drink. . . sobriety has made you cranky."

And thinking back on that, it might be true.  You know, time goes much slower when you are not drinking.  Colors fade and edges sharpen.  There is just a terrible literalness to things.  Maybe that explains my testiness with my mother.

Oooo.  I do remember saying some other nasty things, too.  But I'll leave that alone for now.  I don't want to lose a reader.

For some reason, I think today's photo looks like a Yearbook photograph.  Spooky High.  Class of 2009.

Pictures and Stories

I have figured out the exposures on "The Liberator" but I keep missing focus.  In this photo, the area between the strap of her purse and her necklace is in focus.  Her eyes are not.  That is how small a tolerance there is in shooting with the Aero-Ektar wide open.  And there is the tilt/shift to deal with, too.  I will need to wear my glasses with this camera which makes everything all the more cumbersome.

I've struggled too long in trying to tell you a story this morning.  I can't.  I'll just make it brief.  When I mentioned "Entourage" to the girl in the photograph, she said back, "Men of a Certain Age."  I'd never heard of the show before, but I think I knew what she meant.  You can't explain yourself to people, you know.  It is important never to try.

She said she'd send pictures.  She didn't say when.  But Prodigal Girl (P.G. from now on) did send some iPhone snapshots of Christmas in Brooklyn along with an account of what she cooked.  It looks and sounds like a life to be envied.  And I do know people with lives to be envied.  I wish I could still count myself among their number.

Rather and however, I have become the other thing.  To wit, the girl who didn't call me on Christmas did call today and we met up.  And oh. . . woe is me.  She reads this blog from time to time and will not like me saying this, I know, but what can I do?  I am a storyteller and truth sayer in some form, though I find I can put no art to what I am about to tell.  I've been trying.

She is a pretty girl, and as such she shares an entitlement with all those of her ilk.  Attention.  She gets it when she gets into her car.  She gets it when she steps out.  She gets it when she is walking down the street, and she gets it in cafes.  She gets it and doesn't think about it.  This is just what she gets.

I used to be a pretty girl, too.  Sort of.  I mean, I got attention.  It was not a god-given gift but was something I cultivated.  I took my hillbilly body and carved it and shaped it with

Future Past

A look back to the future the way it was viewed in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  The future was better back then.

What happened to it?  I think our culture began to disintegrate when we quit believing.  I grew up believing in everything--visitors from outer space, monsters from the lagoon, big foot, the loch ness monster--it was all possible.  It even gave something to adults, a glimmer of hope, perhaps. Anything might happen.

Once that was all gone, cynicism and sarcasm replaced irony.  And though Dick Tracy watches, X-Ray glasses, and shoe phones are now all a reality, we have no belief.  We are simply worn out with it all.

How I love the future past.  Passed.

Over

(A Liberator experimnet with Polaroid 55 P/N)

It has been slow at the Cafe.  Perhaps it is the holiday.  Lazy days of rich foods and expensive champagnes and friends and family, too.  It was balmy in the semi-tropics.  I hope Klaus made his last stops here.  He might decide to stay awhile.

The day passed uneventfully.  I rose too early, made coffee and read and wrote to you, then went for an exercise run on a course in a park that was empty.  Not a car.  I was alone.  I gave myself a break and did not push.  I thought of skiing in Park City in a few weeks and knew two things.  I would not be in great shape no matter what, and if I hurt myself, I would not be skiing at all.  And so I ran with the ghosts of people I had done this with over the years.  They were good company.

By noon, I was ready for mother's.  And so I packed up gifts and a big bottle of Christmas Ale from Belgium and a wonderful bottle of champagne, the one my mother had been clamoring for the night before.  I had bought the world's smallest turkey as dinner for two.  It weighed less than nine pounds, an easy cook, and there would still be leftovers for sandwiches.  There would be the whole package--stuffing, cranberries, sweet potatoes, green beans, oven fresh rolls, etc.

When I got there, we opened the ale.  Mmmm, good.  We chatted and opened presents, mine to her not so many since I'd gotten her the cable package and I am really not into shopping for other people, hers to me more plentiful and silly.  A bad sweater, a package of cashews from Spain (really very good, actually), cookies, slippers (no kidding), and a box of Giorgio Armani shave/after shave/cologne.  Now I haven't worn cologne since the tenth grade, I think, but there it was.

"This is great.  Thanks mom."

I was already thinking about what I might buy myself tomorrow.

Then it was time to eat.  My mother is, I must say, one of the worst cooks in the world.  She has no sense of taste, I believe.  Nothing is ever seasoned properly (if at all) and everything is overcooked.  As was the turkey.  It was O.K., but it had no flavor other than the naturally foul taste of that dirtiest of birds.

"Where'd you buy the green beans," I asked?

"Publix."

"Something is wrong with them," I said, making a show of smelling those on my fork.

"They were frozen.  I mean they got frozen in the crisper.  I need to get a new refrigerator.  I've tried to change the settings, but everything freezes."

I picked up a sweet potato.  If fell apart.

We ate for awhile when my mother said, "Oh!  I forgot the rolls."

She went to the counter and opened a bag of rolls and put one on my plate.

"They're cold."

"Yea."

When I was just about finished, she said, "You didn't get any dressing."

"Great."

She put a big pile on my plate.  It was like mush.

"Let's open the champagne," I said.

Eschewing the store-bought pumpkin pie, I lay down upon her couch.  I was asleep in minutes.

An hour and a half later, I woke up.

"I don't sleep enough," I told her.  "I've been waking up at three o'clock in the morning."

I set about showing her how to use the "On Demand" feature of her DVR, and how to record shows.  She just looked at me and said, "Yea."

When I'd come over the day before, she had said, "The cable guy was able to get my t.v. to show everything across the whole screen.  I looked and saw people from another planet with wide heads and short bodies.

"What?"  I took the remote and changed the picture back.

Now she was telling me, "I want you to put the t.v. back so it is full screen."

"No," I told her.  I'm not doing that.  You want to watch people all stretched out?"

"I hate the black bands on the sides."

"Nope.  Nope nope nope nope nope."

And in a little while it was over and I was going home with my Armani cologne.  The light was beginning to fail.

Then it was done and gone.  I had only two days of it.  And no regrets.

The girl who had called on Christmas Eve had not done as she promised and called to wish me Merry Christmas.  There were none of the promised photos from The Prodigal Girl.  Everything was back to normal.

Maybe next year.

Christmas

Christmas Eve was a surprise.  I woke up far too early, read, wrote, went back to bed, then rose and took a walk, shower, nap, and finally got out of the house at 1:30.  I still had Christmas shopping to do.  I walked out my door and heard some voices from next door.  And then a pretty woman walked by me where I stood on the deck off the kitchen, and she smiled.  I smiled back and said hello.  I live on the corner of two streets, so I watched her as she walked by for a while, she watching back and smiling, too.  Who was she?  I wondered if I knew her and didn't remember.  No, I'd remember.  She was too pretty to forget.  And then she was out of sight.  Where was she walking to?  Would I ever see her again?  Another Christmas mystery.

On the Boulevard, I ran into a casual friend, an attorney and quite an art collector.  I've been to his house on several occasions, but really he's a friend of a friend.  We chatted about some mutual misery we share concerning our ex-friend the scoundrel and worse, Brando, and then about some other mutual miseries including being single.  But we spoke of cures for that particular misery, too, and we decided to get tother for drinks sometime soon.  And we decided, too, that he should stop by my studio one night to see what I have there.  I'm sure he will like something, and I'd love to see one of my pictures hanging in his house with all the other wonderful stuff.

As I continued on my shopping spree, a woman spoke to me.  We were crossing the street against the light.

"O.K.," said the pretty blonde, "let's be rebels."

"Oh, well, I'm just following you and your bad example."

She lifted her chin and laughed another comment my way.  She, being younger (and me being in no particular hurry), strolled ahead giving me a vision of what a woman should look like when she's walking away, happy rather than angry.

A couple of unfruitful stops into shops, then into a new French bakery that had recently opened.  I looked around and decided to buy a peach torte for my mother.  I stepped back onto the boulevard.  Suddenly, the woman from earlier walked by me as before.  We were crossing against the light once more

"We meet again," she said.  "We are dangerous."

"Oh, no, not me," I told her.  "I am renowned for nothing as much as for following the sage old dictum, 'Safety First!'"

And again, I watched as she lifted her chin.  Suddenly I noticed that I was walking on the balls of my feet.

Two more presents and it was time to meet up for the annual Christmas Eve drinks with the same pack of losers I've done this with for too many years to remember.  It was time to find out who had divorced or who had broken up with his girl or who wished they had, who was spending Christmas with someone and who was alone, and most importantly, who was taking Xanax this year.  In truth, it was a smart and successful group, once the envy of my own sophisticated hamlet, and one needed all of one's wits not to become grist for the mill.  Of course anyone who was not there immediately became the butt of most stories.

A woman I didn't know was already seated with the fellows when I arrived.  After a bit of witty repartee, she excused herself to visit another table.

"Who is she with?" I asked.

"That's So and So.  You don't know her?  She owns the art magazine."

"What?!  What the fuck."

"Yea, you should know her.  She's connected."

In a bit she came back.

"So and So, do you know C.S.?  He's an artist.  You should know him."

At this she began to rail and waive her hands.  She actually turned her back to me.

"Oh no, I don't do artists any more.  I don't need any more artists.  I'm done with that."

She looked like a nut.

"Take it easy lady," I said.  "I'm not an artist.  I work at the factory."

I have no need of people and I certainly didn't need her, some local art maven with a little magazine.  Well, she had a copy.  It was glossy and big, well printed.  But she had disappeared for me.  I turned back to my friend across from me and took up where we had left off.  I could feel the conversation going on at the other end of the table, though, and heard one fellow tell her what I did at the factory.  Oh, it seemed that was of some interest to her.  Suddenly she was all about me.

"I'm a writer," she said.

"Really?  What have you written?"

"I write."

Apparently for the magazine.

"Well good for you," I told her.

She handed me a piece of paper and a pen.  "You need to give me your information."

I'd already finished with this.  I wasn't coming back.

"What information?"

"Your name, your website, your email and phone number."

There was no way I was giving her directions here to the blog.  Nobody at the table had the blog address.  There were only a couple people in town who knew.  For the millionth time I thought that I needed to put up a "decent" site that I could sign my name to, that wouldn't disgrace me in front of people I knew or might want to know, people not at all like us.

I wrote down a few things and we shook hands.  Then she was gone.

"What the fuck?" I said to my friends.

"Well. . . she. . . you know. . . but she can help. . . ."

"Right."

A woman--no--a fixture--of our fine town stopped by the table to say hello to the boys.  She had once been married to a Senator who had died and left her gobs of money.  I used to know a guy twenty or more years ago who was a gigolo.  Truly.  I've known two in my life.  But she used to hire him from time to time.  I could never figure that one out at all.  Now she was about a hundred years old but looked like Zsa Zsa Gabor, and she could still get a rise from the fellows.  She walked over like Cleopatra and graced the fellows with her ample charms blessing them one at a time with the light touch of her hand upon an arms and an intimate smile before she departed.

"How about that, isn't she something?"

I had to believe so.

"Hey, who was that beautiful woman I saw you with at Dexter's the last time I saw you?"

It was my friend who had just gotten divorced after two daughters and ten years of marriage.  I couldn't remember who he'd seen me with.  One of the models I had just finished shooting with, sure, but which one?

"I can't remember.  Did she look like a hooker?"

Everybody laughed.

"No, she was gorgeous."

Then I remembered.  It was the first woman I had ever shot with in the studio.  She was in town that day and we had met up for a quick drink before she left.  I didn't want to dissuade them, though, from thinking what they were wanting to think, and I rather enjoyed my momentary status as a Casanova, so I told them something vague.  Just then my phone rang.  Nobody ever calls me, but it was Christmas Eve and I'd been calling people all over the country to send holiday wishes.  I looked at the number.  It was the girl!  The very topic of our conversation!  I couldn't believe it.

"That's funny," I said nonchalantly, "it's the woman of whom we speak."

She had already attained the status of mythical proportions so far in our conversation.  I wasn't about to answer.  I put the phone back into my pocket.

"What are you doing?!?  Answer it!"

"I'll let her leave a message."

"??????!!!!"

I didn't want to look like the eager man who hadn't been on a date all year.  I liked the illusion I was creating here.

And then suddenly it was all over.  As the sun began to fade, we made our Merry Christmases to one another and each vanished in his own fashion.  I left with plans to go skiing with a friend I hadn't travelled with in years.  We would be in Park City for Sundance.  He had met a writer whose book had been made into a movie that starred everyone, and she would be there, too.  It was something to look forward to, I thought, if I can still ski. I was more than a little worried about that.

But the most important thing in the world is the next trip.  Now I had one.  Soon.

My next stop was my mother's house dinner.  I had told her I would pick something up for us, but I'd waited too long, and all that I could find open was McDonalds.  I know.

"Did you bring champagne?" she asked.

Uh-oh.

"Well, yes I did.  It is in the car.  It isn't cold, though."

"You said you were going to bring champagne."

"Well. . . I did."

I wasn't feeling like the good son on Christmas Eve.  I don't think she was happy that I'd been drinking so long with my friends, either.  Worse, I'd done a paltry job of shopping for presents.  I had bought her a fake fur throw from Pottery Barn at the last minute before they closed.  I looked over at her on the couch.  Why hadn't I noticed before that she already had one?  Oh. . . it was terrible, but there was nothing to do about it now.

We made plans for our Christmas dinner the next day, and I left to drive home through streets lighted for the holidays.  The roads were quiet.  Families sat together watching movies and eating popcorn.  That's what you think when you're alone.

Then I was home.  The cat was glad.  And there on the counter were presents for my mother and me.  Santa had already come.  Sort of.  They were from the woman who still had a key to my house.  I was surprised by it.  We'd not exchanged presents of any kind for over a year.  Well--I had a bag of champagne to give.  It was the same as I got.

I'd been drinking, so, I thought, I should continue, and I decided to pour a scotch.  Stronger than I remembered it.  Funny that.  I checked my email, and there like a present was an email from the Prodigal Girl.  She was not coming back for Christmas this year, she said.  She was staying in New York.  She sent holiday wishes and promised pictures.  Surely it was beautiful.

The night before Christmas.  It had been better than I hoped.  I hope yours was, too.

Christmas Eve, Pt. 2

Christmas Eve

I'm not feeling irreverent about Christmas at all, but everything I say or do has ironic overtones.  Undertones.  Both.  Q has been posting about Christmas over at his blog, and today I left a comment that was supposed to be funny and then sweet, but I don't think it came across that way.  I made a Christmas card from Lonesomeville and sent it to a few friends.  It is practically wicked.  I didn't manage to get any cards mailed this year, so I am posting this one.  Klaus.  I wonder why the designer didn't capitalize merry?

For the first time in my adult life, I have gone through the entire season without hearing songs from "A Charlie Brown Christmas," not even "Christmas Time Is Here" by Vince Guaraldi.  Maybe tonight.

I noted last night that more houses than not lack Christmas decoration in my very traditional town.  I, for one, am for decorations, but I, for one as well, have been far too worn out to make the effort.  Survival instinct, I think.  "Reserve your energy resources," some evolutionary voice seems to whisper.  Is it like that for others, too?

I'm more happy than sad, I think, which has not always been the case this time of year.  I have had to put very little effort into the season.  I got my mother's present yesterday by telephone, and today I will shop to buy little things to put under "the tree."  We have no real tree, but my mother put up one of those little twelve inch electrical trees to mark the season.  Some bottles of wine for friends and I'll be done.

Kris Kringle used to bring small things like a bag of coal or apples or apricots for good cheer.  People didn't expect so much.  There wasn't much.  A pair of gloves.  A new hat.

I'll probably post again tonight.  Maybe.  A picture of the town, perhaps, nestled in its tropic splendor.

The sun is rising.  It is cloudy and gray.  A chance to read and think.

One more from "The Liberator."  Merry Christmas.

Sapphire Diamond

The afternoon sky was Provence blue, the air warm.  It was the solstice, the shortest day of the year.  I sat outside a cafe after another shoot, my day half done.  The sandwich was dry and boring without beer.  A pretty girl walked past.  I did not look after her.  All young girls were pretty now, it seemed.  That said more about me than about them.  I'd missed it again, I thought, missed once more that Christmas sensation.  Where once there might have been anticipation there was only something similar to remorse without being remorse exactly.  I hadn't sent out Christmas cards.  I guessed I wouldn't this year.  Perhaps in a few days I'd send out something else.  Yes, yes, there was hope.  I could make all the things in the studio that I'd planned to make a month ago until the factory beatings began and time fell by the wayside.  Why had I shot so many girls these past days?  I hadn't time for anything.  I'd not been able to get my mother any presents yet.  What would we do Christmas day?  I was tired even though I'd not drunk a beer.  I needed a nap.  I'd been staying up late, past midnight, but still I awoke every morning at four.  The horribleness of it gave way to the pleasure of the hot coffee, but later the heavy fatigue set in, limbs weighed as with cement and eyes that did not want to see.  What were their names?  I couldn't remember the names of the women I'd been shooting with all week.  That was bad. It was terrible.  I remembered that last year the beautiful woman had come to my house to invite me to a party.  Or was that the year before?  What was her name?  She was young and pretty when she began stopping by on her walks in the neighborhood some years ago, but last year she was a beautiful woman.  What was her name?  No one had come to the door this year.  There had been no calls nor surprising emails that someone had come into town.  I realized I'd had no apprehension about that, no anticipation, and that I no longer believed in the knock on the door nor the incoming email.  Text.  It would be a text now.  In a few days it would be Christmas here in the land of sunshine, the days like blue diamonds on a never ending strand.

Just Bedraggled

The Liberator portrait # 4.  I think.  I've been using it.  It is like learning to play the piano.  First you are just trying to find the keys but eventually your hands take over and you needn't think so much.  There are a lot of knobs and gears to turn to make a picture with this ten pound hunk of glass, wood, and metal, and I am slow and awkward with it, but I am getting faster.  And soon, I may not be awkward, either.  Exposure control is clunky, and even with a meter their is a lot of guesswork. But here is one from yesterday, handheld at 1/4 sec. so there is a bit of camera shake evident.  Either not enough or too much.  That is the way of everything that is good.  Extremes.  You can see the shallow depth of field and the effects of the tilt/shift lens here.  It might be quite something soon enough.

All this dry, technical talk, though, is just to keep me from talking about the other.  I mean, I crashed last night.  Down the rabbit hole.  It is everything.  I've let too much that needs to be done pile up.  Practical things that you needn't think about when you are a child, the things that parents take care of like house repairs, driveway maintenance and lawn care, dishes, laundry, cars. . . . Shit, the Volvo has been sitting in the driveway for almost a year now without being driven.  I was going to give it to a friend's son, but somehow that never happened and time slipped by faster than I could imagine it would.  There is that and things like that, many of them, piling up around my ears.  I need to spend thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to catch up now.  But what do I do instead?  You know.  The evidence is all here.

I don't sleep.  I fall asleep on couches and in chairs, but i wake at four each morning unwillingly.  I am being eaten from the inside, deep down, maybe at the cellular level.  And last night--and who knows why (maybe the season snuck up on me unawares)--I fell.  It was like a scene from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."  Outside and in.  All at once.

And it was a single incident that triggered it, something unfortunate, the result of many things, a culmination, something relatively minor on the one hand and devastating on the other, a moment of personal reckoning and (dare I say) shame.  And perhaps with enough distance, I'll tell you about it one day. But the moment dominates me now and from it I wish some distraction.

I meant to write that as the opener today, wanting to write an essay on "Distraction," why we want it and how easy it is in the Age of Distraction, and what the consequences are.  But that will wait for another time.

Christmas, as it does in recent years, has snuck up on me once again.  I have sent no Christmas cards and may not be able to.  I have yet to buy presents for my mother or any of the many little things I need to buy for friends.  It is overwhelming now.  It is simply too much.  I had grand ideas about all that in November, everything handmade.  I used to.  I used to find the time.  It made me feel good.

But now I have images piled up to the ceiling to deal with.  They are like the mops and pails in "Fantasia" growing exponentially like a virus or a cancer.

I had two shoots yesterday, one today, and one tomorrow.  Some deal I've made, eh Moloch?  

Bedraggled and Happy

I feel alive tonight.  I'm not sleepy nor ready for bed.  It has been like this all week.  It might be due to my lack of drinking (which, I might say, has saved me a tidy sum this week), or it could be because I am free of the factory until January 3.  I don't know.  But I was out tonight running some errands and I had an urge to stay out in the cool darkness and cruise.

It has been a rough year and a long time since I felt this way.  I won't go into it.  But somehow, some of it seems to be fading into the past, at least emotionally, and some other has been mitigated in one way or another.

But I've been feeling very blue this year and truly have gone nowhere at all.  I work, go to the gym, go to the grocery store, come home and cook for me and Puss 'n Boots, drink, eat, and watch television.  Unless  I have someone to shoot.  Then I rush home from work and run to the studio to work until nine o'clock or so.  And, of course, in the mornings, I write.

I've left out the part where I make all the pictures in post-production.  Before bed and after I get up.

It has all been quite busy.

And I realize that I would not have committed myself to all of this if I had remained happy, or what passes for it, and had not been alone.  After "the end of the affair" last year, I threw myself into the creative work.  It stimulated me and kept my mind off the other thing.  And always I thought that no matter what anyone said, the work was good, and it was worthwhile.

And now--well, some very nice things are happening already.  Q has chastised me for being happy, I think (see yesterday's comments and you tell me), but I am.  O.K.  He will say "not happy."  Whatever.   I am, but it won't last.

Here is another of the "Liberator" photos I've taken.  Took it tonight in the studio.  The light was not right, but I wanted to see if I could get the correct exposures.  I did and can.  Now I must begin to think about aesthetics.  This photo was hand held at 1/4 of a second.  The camera weighs over ten pounds.  There is, of course, a little shake.  Not a good picture.  Just documenting.  And oh, I fell for the model tonight.  Same girl as in the photo at the top of the page.  That is digital and still too yellow, but it is her.  Nonetheless.  I fell for her not really and truly but I was enamored in some way, and perhaps that adds to the aliveness. I have not let myself feel anything at all for over a year, so maybe this is the beginning of something.

After the shoot, I skipped the gym and went around the corner for $1 burgers.  I threw in a Corsican salad with it and a German wheat beer (oops).  $12 with tip.  And plenty of smarmy Country Club assholes at the bar talking shit to one another.  A good night, really.

But now I am sleepy and ready for bed.  It has been a big day.  Huge.  I am worn out with it all.

Hurry Down the Chimney Tonight

Think of all the fun I've missed
Think of all the [girls] that I haven't kissed

(from "Santa Baby" by Javits and Springer)

It's true, too.  I've been an especially good boy this year.  I haven't gone out once.  I've done all my work and have been a wonderful son and taken marvelous care of my mother.  I've even quit drinking.  I've written every day and given away so awfully many good and pretty pictures, too.  All for free!

Still, I am not holding my breath for any presents this year.  Santa, I think, will probably pass my house up altogether.

As the old factory owner used to say, "No good deed goes unpunished."

And how I've found that out, too.  I sent out an email announcement of the show over at 591 to everyone who participated, some of whom never acknowledged receipt of their images.  But now--well, EVERYONE has a suggestion or two.  Now that we are "famous". . . whatever. All I'm saying is that I don't expect much from Christmas but drinks on the Boulevard Christmas Eve with the the widows and orphans who have nowhere else to go.

Life is just funny that way.

Some of you may have noticed that I did not link the show back to this site.  Probably not.  But I didn't.  So we--you and I--are the only ones who see all of the show including this image that I just processed today.  Tell your friends.  We are a growing number having double in size this year.  While other companies are dropping like zeppelins, we've doubled our value and are now nearing something nearing four figures.  Go Team.

Santa honey, I wanna yacht and really that's
Not a lot
I've been an angel all year

O.K.  Here's the song.  "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt.  The rimes are really good.

"Lonesomeville": The Movie

It is done.  It is up.  You can see the full show here (link).  Thank you Ulf for making me get this together.  I am a Slacker (and if you haven't seen the movie, watch it) and would not have made the effort on my own.  The show is composed of 120 images.  That is a fraction of what I have.  Trying to select was getting the best of me.  Finally, though, we decided that this would be a "living" permanent exhibition.  The images will rotate in time so that people can come again and again and see things they've not seen before.  I like that.

Now I am weary unto death, and want to go to bed for weeks.

But I feel the need to post the first "Liberator" photograph taken by me.  This is Mike, the hipster camera guy who fixes all my old and broken toys and to whom I gave the wrong Graflex to turn into "Frankencamera."  The exposure is off--way too underexposed--but I am documenting, so. . . .  You can see evidence of the tilt/shift lens in the out of focus areas.  I took only four photographs this weekend, for I was busy getting together this show.  I have done nothing to this "Liberator" image other than scan it and correct for color and contrast.  There is no hoodoo here.  But I will work and more pictures will come.  It is just a matter of time and effort.  What else is there but that?

Still this:  what are the chances that I can get "Lonesomeville" made into a book?

"The Liberator"

(photo by John Minnick)

This is the camera I have now--not mine, but John Minnick's own.  He is letting me use his while mine is being finished.  I walked about with it yesterday trying to become familiar with it.  It is heavy--almost ten pounds--but boy do people respond to it.  Walk around with a thing like this and people talk to you in the street.  But I am pretty certain that I will need a tripod to use this camera well.  I looked at some good ones yesterday and some good heads, too, and suddenly the cost of buying and using this camera doubled.  So for now, I will walk with the thing slung across my shoulder.

But suddenly I am making more and more digital images than ever.  That is the way of things.  I have recently sent around to friends a digital image that they like very much.  They want me to post it here, but I am not sure.  This is a happy weird place, and the image is darker than what I usually show.  I have lots of darker images that do not make their way into the cafe, so to speak.  This is a safe haven for those who have been to WeirdoWorld and who may have even taken a few of the rides but who do not, in the end, want to run away from home but who want to return to a place that is clean and well-lighted.  Perhaps they are like the proprietor who is not scared of the strange but who prefers the museum crowd nonetheless.

I lose my way.  What I began to say is that I have learned to muck up my digital photos enough to like them more, and others like them even more than that, but there is something about a difficult magnificent about a photographic method that you try hard to control but which provides images that are often rough in spite of it all.  Here is an example (link).  And here is the process (link).

The making of those simple photos is arduous, but the process lends itself to making precisely the sort of images I most like.  You cannot simply take a picture of the subject this way.  They are inherently a part of the creative process, conscious of what they must do to present themselves to the camera.  The making of the picture is a true collaboration.

It is simply not so with a digital camera unless you do something radical to change it.  Here, for example, is something I would be most interested in, a digital camera adapted to accept a 19th century lens.

I am already drooling over this one.  I'm not sure that what I stumbled upon here is even a working camera, but I will make inquiries.  I want one badly.

Meanwhile, I work to strip the digital image of its easy perfection, working almost as long with the image as I do with the Polaroids.

And I like them.  But they are not this.

Nor this.

But "The Liberator" is here, and I will learn to use it.  The proof will be in the putting (pudding?)  Perhaps I'll be frustrated and ready to sell it in a month or so.  Or maybe I'll make a bunch of mediocre pictures and tell myself they are O.K.  It is all to be seen.  Perhaps a trip to Madame Sosostris is in order?

O.K.  The sun is shining.  The sky is bright and blue and clear.  I have things to do.  And miles to go. . . etc.

And Then Midnight

Eight-thirty on a Friday night, and I sit in front of the computer ripping George Shearing's "Snowfall" for your enjoyment as the big holiday approaches.  I heard the song just as I parked my car before going to the sushi bar, and I called home to leave myself a message.  It seemed perfect, somehow, for the evening. . . for the season.

I sat on the veranda.

"Sake?"

"No, not tonight.  Do you have iced green tea?"

The waiter thought for a moment and then said, "Yea, we can make that.  Sure.  You want the usual?"

He brought out the iced green tea.  It looked very light, very weak.  And it tasted perfect.

"What did you do?  Pour hot tea over ice?"

He grimaced a bit.  "Yea.  Is it O.K.?"

"Yes, it's great.  Better than sake or beer."

He laughed.  But I wasn't kidding.  It really was good, especially for someone who needs something stronger than water.  I drank it down and he got me another.  The hostess walked by.

"You no drink sake?"

"No.  I quit."

"You quit drink sake?"

"Yes."

"What wrong?  You got fever?"

Later, a waitress came by.

"You need sake?"

"No.  I quit drinking."

"Why?" she asked me like I was nuts.

"I'm getting fat."

"Where?"  She began to pinch me.

"Trust me.  I'm getting dimples."

She leaned close.  "I know what you mean.  Inside, I am, too.  I eat rice and drink wine every night."

She meant under her clothes.  She looked very fit like some femme fatale in a Seanery O'Connor James Bond movie.

"I drink whiskey."

"She threw her hands up in the air and shook her head as she walked away."

The food came and the owner walked up.

"You don't want sake," she asked me?

Repeat until everyone in the restaurant had asked me.  They stood in small groups and said "sake," heads tossing in my direction.  I assumed they made a lot of money on the sake.

As I came home from work today, the FedEx truck was sitting outside.  Perfect timing.  It was Frankencamera.  Not mine, but one like it.  Mine will surely come.

I carefully took it out of the box and checked it.  Shit.  It was complex.  I would have to think about how to shoot with it.  How do I set the shutter speed and aperture?  But holding it in my hands, I knew I had something.  It is heavy.  It is a monster.

I will try for an instant film image tomorrow.

So here I sit, clear headed, sober, bored and alone and very aware in what passes for pajamas, home for the night, cat planted heavily on my feet.  So here is a song for you.  Happy Holidays.

 *     *     *     *     *     

Midnight

*     *     *     *     *

Without liquor, perhaps, I do not pass out at ten, and wide awake, I thought to go out to my friend's bar downtown.  Then I thought of getting dressed and driving.  Awake but not ready.  Working on images with warm milk and the cat.  If you saw me through the window sitting at the table, would you think me anything like you?

Killing Giants

Boring.  It doesn't get any less so.

I've had three shoots in three days in addition to the factory work, so I am worn.  But oh my gosh, the stories I have collected are unbelievable.  I don't think I can tell them here.  Shot without a drink every time, so of course the images are not as good.  I'll be a Puritan soon.

But see that lost look in old Hem's eye?  That is what I want to avoid, that and all the rest.  God it is glorious to drink and have fun.  Still, you can see it here in this photo that there is drinking and not having fun, too.  The Giant Killer is how Hem referred to it.

Frankencamera has arrived--almost.  I waited for Fedex until almost noon yesterday, watched the truck drive by, called and was told it was on another truck, a private contractor's truck.  I was not here when he stopped by.  I will try again today, but the Fedex truck has just driven by twice, so it will probably be this afternoon.  I am antsy.

I do think, though, that I have lost some weight this week.  I'll keep imagining that my skin is getting beautiful, too, that the years are falling away like leaves in autumn.  After today, I am going to the factory very little until after the New Year, so I will walk and run and go to the gym and work my way back to my original weight of eight pounds eight ounces.  I will be all cartilage, no bone.

What the hell is Hem wearing in this picture?  Jesus, maybe that is why I quit drinking.

The Death of Shakespeare. . .

. . . and Company.

I have become as shameless as a newspaper with my headings.

George Whitman, the venerable owner of Shakespeare and Company (pt. ii) has died.  He was ninety-eight years old (N.Y. Times article).

The legend will grow to myth, I assume.  "Back in the day. . . ."  I met George a couple of times in the '80s on various trips to Paris.  I sought him and his bookstore out, for I was enamored of all things bohemian and Parisian for a long while.  The 1920's especially.  I wanted to touch the history.  So I was practically breathless when I found the bookstore nestled there humbly just off the Seine.

And I'm sorry to say, it was underwhelming.

The store itself was a musty wreck with old and mildewed books lying everywhere in what appeared to be unorganized piles.  I'm sure old George knew what they were and where they were going, but for a casual customer like myself, it seemed chaotic.  It was crowded and full of the people you might expect.  George was awfully approachable but just as prickly.  He was not a man who inspired me to offer a hug.  One of the first things he said to me was that he was just a scribbler.  When he excused himself from our conversation, that is what he said.  "You must excuse me, but I must go and do some scribbling."  It was, I thought, too pretentiously cute and worn.

I knew that if he liked you, he would let you board there for a time, and I had gone hoping to do just that, to sleep in the famous Shakespeare and Company with the great names of the past, but the place itself disabused me of the idea.  I was staying in a low-rent, dirty hotel on the left bank, but this would have been several steps down from there.  And really and truly, I've stayed in some very bad dives.

Still, it feels as if something has changed with old George's death.  The world needs illusionists and dreamers, even if they are only figments.  He has a daughter who is now minding the store.  I have an urge to go and meet her.  I have great hopes.  She was an infant when I was there.  Surely she will be one of the most interesting and beautiful women in Paris by now.  She will be like Gabrielle the antique dealer who loves the music of Cole Porter in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris."  Certainly it will be true.

I have convinced myself this morning that I must go and meet her.  Yes, yes. . . destiny awaits me.

*     *     *     Later That Same Day     *     *     *

OH MY GOD!  SHE IS!

Read here and here.  Truly, I loved her father.  He was one of the great romantics of our time, a truly heroic figure.  I will tell her.  

Farm Report

I stayed up later than usual, rose later, too, and have put off writing as long as I can.  Today, I can only provide a "farm report."  If that.  My mind has disengaged (but remember, there is an oddly beautiful photo, too).

Yesterday was my mother's birthday.  And I missed it.  I didn't forget it, but I was going to leave the factory early so that I could see her before she went out with her girls.  I had wanted to take her to dinner, of course, but the girls had already made plans.  Who am I to stand in the way of that, right?  So I thought I'd leave the plant at two, take her flowers and cake and a present, and make her day a little bit shinier.  But the factory ate me alive and I could not get away.  Problem after problem piled on my plate, and suddenly I looked at the clock and it was 3:30.  The girls were picking her up at four.  So I called and told her.  She took it well, but I was devastated.  It was one of the landmark birthdays, too.  I am a wretched son.  Fucking Factory.

And so maybe I'm thinking that I don't deserve this, but John Minnick's sent me an email and a FedEx number yesterday.  His camera should be here by the end of the week.  Yea!  What will I do with it?  I will surely hate it, will surely wish I'd never ordered such a thing.  What will it do that other cameras won't?  I am going in the wrong direction.  All decisions lead to hell.

I shot with a model last night.  I struggled.  I was consumed by the events of the day, distracted.  Conversation revealed many things, and not in their natural order.  She was a theater major at the local state school but left the program when she got a job on a network television show.  She could not do both.  Later, she signed up for writing classes at the Country Club College and got a BFA in creative writing.  Hmm.  I asked if she studied with some of the writers I know who teach there.  Sure, she did.  She has a blog, she told me, about her dating life.  Maybe all this made me shy.  We shot for awhile, me fairly mute.  I was timid about asking her to do what I usually ask without thought.  Wasted too many Polaroids.  But she was not shy.  Turns out she put herself through school dancing in strip clubs.  Her maternal grandmother was a brothel madame in El Salvador, she said.  She was trying to channel her in our pictures.  I shot fewer photos than I normally do, too worn out from the day, perhaps.  She got her things together and stuck around.  We talked more and it was getting late, so I said, "I'm going to work on these while you talk.  It takes me quite a while after the model leaves, but I'll enjoy the company."  And quite a while later, when I had finished up with part of my "secret process," she was still drinking wine and telling stories.  She was very certain and matter of fact about the telling of things.  I'm curious to see her writing.

Finally home later than I planned, hungry and tired, I poured a bowl of some health food store cereal, the kind that might be good for you but I doubt it, the kind that tastes like it should be good for you, maybe, the kind with something in it that makes it taste un-American in the usual sense of the word, you know, not like the stuff they advertise on network television, the good stuff that lefties are trying to keep away from children.  You know.  Like smoking clove cigarettes.  Like eating only tofu.

I ended up frying some eggs.

The real problem is that I quit drinking.  For awhile, any way.  I've quit drinking and it is boooooooring.  But being big as a whiskey cask is no fun, either.  If I were drinking, I'd not have needed the cereal nor the eggs.  Nope.  I could have gotten plenty of nutrition from a bottle.  All you need, really.  More.

I'm pretty sure that not drinking is bad for me.  I'm certain that drinking is as well.  You get to a point in life where nothing is good for you, nothing at all.  I'm relatively certain, though, that if I had not quit drinking, I would have seen my mother yesterday.  I'm pretty certain I would have been more active and creative last night.  I'm pretty certain that I would have gone to bed at the appropriate time.  For now, however, life is like a Wallace Stevens poem:

"Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock"

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches Tigers
In red weather.

In the words of one immortal, "And so it goes."

Death Being Worse Than Sex

A young man came into my office a couple days ago where I have two of my more modest prints framed and leaning against the wall.  He had a faux-hawk and a leather jacket and a hard stare, and he was in need of something I could help him with.  He looked at the photos.

"What are those supposed to represent?"

"When I took them. . ."

"You took those?"

I looked at him funny.

". . . I was trying to express. . . you know. . . the existential feeling of the fragile individual in a hostile universe. . . ."  I was kind of fucking with him.

"That's what I thought.  How much would you sell one of those for?"

In the end, I was able to help him.  He helped me, too.

But oh. . . I loved the photo in this post right away.  And I have only a few boxes of the Polaroid 669 left.  In a panic, I just bought a couple more boxes off eBay.  Who knows if that will be any good at all.  But if you saw this image as it came from the camera--only greens and cyans--well, I've learned much about working with a film that is no longer made.  Why me?

But some good news.  I called the fellow making Frankencamera yesterday and took up his offer to lend me his until mine is finished.  It should be here by the end of the week.  So even though it won't be mine, I'll be able to begin working with one over the holidays.  The bad news is that I will feel the need to produce.  I'm already having performance anxiety.

Q gives a report today on his trip to the SFMoMA to see the Francesca Woodman exhibit.  You can read his reaction here.  Just before reading his blog, I read an article about Nick Nolte who says that you are old when you think about death more than you think about sex.  Woodman, I imagine by that account, was old though she was young.  In the article, Nolte said that Katherine Hepburn told him that getting old was just boring.  If I'd lived as a Hollywood star in that era, I'm certain I would think so, too.

Little of Consequence

People are becoming less interesting or I am becoming less interested in people or I have so little to do with them any more that I don't hear them speak.  Something is up.  I can't even recount a conversation of any interest to record here. It is me, I'm certain.  When I shot with the model in this photograph, she didn't speak.  I thought that she was not really happy and was just seeing the shoot through to the end, but she wrote to me yesterday and said she "really had a good time."  She wants to come back and shoot again soon, she said.  "I want to learn more from you."  I was talking, she was listening, and that's a reversal.  I like to ask questions and discover, but this girl just didn't talk, and that made me nervous.  I am very happy she wants to come back.  She was a swell gal as they used to say, at least in the movies.  Maybe we'll both be silent.

I need to take to the streets, need to sit and listen.  I hear things I could never make up.  And if the fellow would only finish my camera and get it to me, I might begin, though I have fears about that.  It is very possible that the camera will arrive and that I will never use it.  Spending money and hope on something so archaic. . . well, it could backfire.  Have I lost my nerve?  Will I be able to approach strangers for pictures and conversation?  The first thing is to get the camera.  JOHN!  GET ME THE CAMERA!

There is nothing interesting about being a recluse.  It is just easy.  I had two conversations this weekend.  No. . . three.  One brief exchange with the girl who owned the motor scooter, another with the woman at the shop that sold them, and last night with my mother.  I've already exhausted the material from the first two.  My mother and I said nothing new.

You might think that in the time I spent alone, I might have come to some interesting insights, a realization or two at the least.  Nope.  I am a bore.

But I work on images and they keep coming, and that, at least, makes me happy, although recently I have begun to wonder why.  Perhaps I will reduce my life to some ravaging minimum where nothing is of importance or interest.  And sitting in the darkness of a pre-dawn Monday morning prior to going to the factory, such a thing causes me no discomfort or distress.  I should be worried, I think, but I am not.

Perhaps it is only the season.