Left click on any image for a slide show of all images on this page.
July 13, 2019
217.0 lbs
217.0 lbs
8:35 AM - Ella’s Bellas
… feeling better, morning coolness, beautiful day… as i organize things for my walk i decide to bring a book on Graciela Inturbide i purchased yesterday, i am unsure i will read but it comes anyway… i walk to the Downstate Prison graveyard behind the high school, graves in neat rows, marked by small concrete blocks with a cross on them, they remind me of the graves of monks at the Culinary Institute, a monastery before, headstones in orderly rows, all the same, does every inmate get a cross, what if he isn’t christian, isn’t religious, some headstones display the names of the dead, mostly hispanic, many of them dying in their 40’s and 50’s, i wonder how they die, sickness, fights… i make a few photographs, then move on… in the park a women’s softball league is warming up… i continue to walk, to make photographs, i arrive at EBs just after it opens, say hello to M and J, place my things at my usual table, then up front to order… M takes my order, coffee and a roll… i open the book on Iturbide, a graphic novel biography produced by the Getty Museum, i am smitten with the format and content, i finish it and want to go home and have a look at the book of her work i got at the Brooklyn Museum… a little girl gleefully runs to the back of the store, her pretty mother follows her, earlier i passed them on the street, the father gave me a friendly hello, asks how i am, “well,” i say, “and you?”, “well,” he says… the little girl runs back and forth, back and forth, enjoying mobility, here she comes again, mother trailing behind to keep her from trouble, but allowing freedom… a baby vocalizing, a little boy comes out of the stroller and joins the joy running… i am renewed, reinvigorated, ready to go…
July 12, 2019
218.8 lbs
… feeling depressed, since yesterday afternoon, I tried to start positively this morning, then H up way before normal, all personal devices low on battery charge, iPhone, iPad, both cameras, device low energy state mirrored my own… as i left, i commented to H about her earlier than usual rising, she had a bad dream, i suggested changing bedtime routine to be sure something happy/positive happens before sleep, different dream kindling… H has bad dreams all the time, i don't know what has her mind in such negative space… what has my mind in such negative space, weather, state of creative journey, state of the world, only at the cosmic level do things seem as they should be, because, of course, they are, here is a thought, the further one pulls out from local conditions of being, the more things seem as they should be, only at the scale of what we can hope to effect are things not as they should be, that is, not to our liking… purpose, struggle, success, failure, good, evil, constrained to the local… only in the here, the now, the immediate, do light and darkness have meaning… the only possible way for the immediate to become significant to the general is through a progression to transcendence a higher place, a more enlightened place… the suspicion that there isn’t anything higher, more enlightened… desperate insistence that there must be more… deep depression of loosing hope… eventual subsumption into black waters of non-being… tail chasing dogs, hiss of sprinklers, joy of children, sadness abounds… hope, disappointment, depression… hope, disappointment, depression… are tail chasing dogs the ultimate symbol of futility… tail chasing dogs, children leaping through sprinkler mist, dogs turn to snakes devouring tails, adults vaping, drinking, eating, raping, pillaging… sprinkler leaping children again and again and again… adult disappointment again and again and again… death, again and again and again… ever thus, ever will be… oy, yo, yin, yang… BR on the principle of induction, if A is always seen with B, one can reasonably expect that a sighting of A will also be a sighting of B… this is not something that can be known definitively as true, it is assumed on the basis of ever growing evidence of experience… the vast majority of our actions are based on induction, if A then B, the more experience confirms A then B, the closer statistical likelihood approaches to 100… is there something in this that can explain Donald Trump…
July 11, 2019
219.6 lbs
219.6 lbs
… “The patriarchy is rape culture and it is not just the systemic and direct rape of women that is the consequence. The patriarchy rapes everything, the planet, everything on the planet, everything beyond the planet, everything it can get its grubby little hands on. Women in power is a first step to addressing the parade of what I am coming to think of as serial crimes against humanity.”*… i post this to fb, no reactions yet, i view it as truth, a fundamental problem with the way we organize ourselves, the most realistic way things could change, get women in power in proportion to their percentage of the population, i have no illusions, women can be wrong headed too, but i believe in their difference of perspective, i believe in the power of that perspective to transform, to a culture that does not rape, i don’t know if it would replace the economic system that walks hand in hand with the patriarchy, but it might harness it to different purpose… feeling a little out of it this morning, hot already, ac all day, much to do around the house, the photography, etc, etc… terrific dinner last night, potato gnocchi with fava beans and sage butter, dandelion greens salad, excellent combo… BR talking about knowledge by direct experience and knowledge by acquaintance, the latter being the larger part of what we proclaim to know… Lojong today, when dying i am to practice the five strengths, strong determination, familiarization, the positive seed, reproach, so as to have a constructive dissolution, and prepare my self for future incarnations… i am tired, trouble keeping eyes open…
*Facebook post, Michael Bogdanffy-Kriegh, with shared article, “In the Patriarchy, No One Can Hear You Scream,” Rebecca Solnit.
July 10, 2019
219.6 lbs
219.6 lbs
8:00 AM - Madame Brett Park
… feeling a better today, still the effects of too much alcohol, 36 hours later… Salon attendance off last night, only half shared work, we were out early… dinner with S, i asked if he and G were just good friends, for now he indicated… my new work was well received, happy about that, wondering if there is enough to it, if it can be combined with other DM images, we’ll see… right now, i am practically falling asleep, right now, not enough sleep… contemplating my trip to Florida, bracing myself… H working today, Chas and I smothered her in a "love scrum" to wake her up, this made her laugh… I distract myself with emails, fb, whatever, listen to the creek now, two fishermen on the boardwalk, fish have been caught, one talks about the arrival of crabs…
July 08, 2019
217.6 lbs
217.6 lbs
7:58 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
… strange music, heavy on horns, i comment, K tells me the album is Whipped Cream and Other Delights, Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass i tell her, my father’s music, i compliment her highly eclectic taste… tired, achey, form all the garden work, mountain climbing, etc. i did yesterday… the garden looks good, more to do, could look so much better… there seems to be a power outage in parts of town, AM talks to K about it, K says something happened earlier, AM stops to ask me if we have power, i tell him we do, don’t see AM much, don’t always remember his name… Bertrand Russell discussing Idealism, the idea that things exist only within the mind, an errant idea permeating philosophy says BR… there is no more reason to suppose mind a pre-requisite to matter, than it isn’t… the argument rages on, apparently Bishop Berkley thought God was the reason things persist outside of our minds, everything is always in God’s mind, the new age version being some sort of universal mind, not god in any sense we have understood it, which always has everything in it and therefore, everything can exist and a tree can fall in the forest even if nobody is there to hear it, my own thinking being the universe is way more that we can understand, only that which would break a universal law to exist can be felt with certainty not to exist… rabbit holes, the truth will be stranger than we ever thought…
July 07, 2018
218.8 lbs
218.8 lbs
7:39 AM - Pocket Road Trail
… cooler, much less humid, work day, garden progress day… birds start to sing loudly, are they quite as you are moving through the woods, hiding in plain sight, do i stop being a concern when i sit still… a couple of pictures with the iPhone… i scan the landscape, framing pictures in my mind, woods notoriously hard to make pictures of, giving chaos order, except it is not chaos, there is order to it… i think for a moment about J and a book i recommend to her, In Search of the Canary Tree, she liked it i found out well after the fact… Persian night last night, tried to watch a movie but fell asleep… H not excited about movies with subtitles, she has trouble reading them… lots of recommendations from friends on what movies to watch, will have to do more Persian nights… sitting cross legged on a rock by the edge of the reservoir stream, the sound of water falling across rocks, it is difficult to find a way to describe it that isn't a cliche… the sound is soothing, I think about how it might mask the sound of an approaching something… well, i have been here for almost half an hour, things to do, should head down…