Malaise or Disease

Originally Posted Monday, December 30, 2013

(photographer)

I think I'll just use other photographer's images on my site from now on.  There are very good ones and I am sick of mine.  No, that isn't true, I am not sick of them.  They fascinate me.  The truth is I fear that the posting of my pictures is simply too monotonous and predictable.  But what can you expect from someone who posts daily?  I find NO photographers able to post a photo daily.  Some try hard enough, very good photographers who make their living that way, but they can't keep it up beyond a week or two.  Then they disappear for a long while.  When they come back, there may be a glut of new images, but then. . . . I wish I had taken the picture above.  I like the treatment, too.  I think of Shakespeare when I look at it, but I can't remember why.  "Midsummer's Night Dream"?  Perhaps I am all wrong. 

I barely have internet right now.  When I do, it comes at dial up speed.  I read an article today int he New York Times that says the U.S. has fallen far behind much of the world in making broadband internet available at a decent price.  Small countries are far ahead.  No shit.  It is the result of short sighted greed and the republican determination not to let government provide ANYTHING.  There are even laws that prevent internet providers from using existing fiber optic cables that are already in existence.  In my own hometown, the lines have not been upgraded at all.  They are decrepit and slow and damaged.  They make repairs as almost needed, but they do not replace, they do not upgrade.  Why should they?  The government has blocked free competition.  They have the deal sewn up.  They are the only provider allowed. 

The new year is coming and I have decisions to make.  One of the biggest ones is whether to keep the studio or not.  Part of me is ready to close it down and put the money in one of those four-o-things that prudent and sensible people get.  That makes the most sense.  I could sell off about three rooms full of photographic equipment and cameras and make a bunch of money there, too.  On the other hand, I read an article today about a pied-a-terre and thought, yes, that is one way of thinking about the studio.  I am fortunate enough to have a pied-a-terre.  And then there is the first hand again.  I think of the hours I would free up if I didn't feel the need to go to the studio.  But I go back to the other hand and wonder if I'd fell trapped not having a place outside my house where I could always go. 

Decision forthcoming. 

I feel much the same about a lot of things here at the end of the year.  I have lain about the house under the grip of something bad throughout the holidays, either malaise or disease, looking toward non-existence in a new and disturbing way.  I've always thought that Dylan Thomas was full of shit when he said "rage, rage against the dying of the light."  Maybe he did, though.  He didn't seem to give in a bit.  "Eighteen straight whiskeys," he said.  "I think it is a record."  Sartre, on the other hand, is reported to have been frightened--I almost said, "to death"--and to have had a deathbed conversion. 

In either case, the outcome was the same. 

I've just had a call from the internet provider.  The repairman is almost here, so I need to make the post if I can.  He will have things torn up for a long while, I assume.  I'll let you know how things turn out.