Temptation

I ate my first salad in months last night.  I ordered takeout from a Greek place, chicken and a Greek salad. The Greek salad they serve isn't really a true Greek salad, though, which has only cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, red onions, and black olives.  Theirs has iceberg lettuce and potato salad along with the rest.  They would be fined if they were in Greece.  But it is a good salad nonetheless, and I ate with gusto.  

Now I wait. 

Part of the new fence at home is built.  The carpenter is making a wonderful fence, piecing and overlaying each board rather than using the cheap Home Depot fence sections.  The wood is thick enough to hold in cattle, I think.  

"That looks great!" I told him.  

"That will be standing long after we're dead," he replied.

"You're saying it will last another three or four year?"

That's one of the photos I took at the little sub shop.  The place is so small that I shot this through the window.  Classic diner decor--grimy floors, dirty counter, backbreaking stools with just enough room to squeeze in.  If you live in the New York corridor, you see such things all the time, but here in my own home state and especially in my own home town, this is an anomaly.  Everything here is new plastic, by and large, unless you travel in certain circles.  Most people are addicted to commercialism, though, and chain food is big money.  

So you'll have to give me this one.  It's not much of a photo, but I showed a small amount of chutzpah in taking it.  

"Where's Waldo?"

See if you can find me hidden in the picture here.  

I'm pretty certain you have an opinion on whether people should be allowed to kill their children or not.  What about Sydney Sweeney thing?  You know, the girl with the good jeans/genes?  Man, that has set the internet ablaze.  I find much of it ass backwards, though.  Some female athletes are "up in arms," as they say, about Sweeney.  They are struggling, they say, to be taken seriously as athletes. . . just like the hydralax woman.  You are, I imagine, familiar with her, too, at this point unless you take great pride in not keeping up with the times.  Here's a take on it all from yesterday's N.Y. Times.  In part:

Sometimes choosing story targets in journalism is about making calculations about what readers will actually click on. Case in point: Would you rather hear about an incredibly beautiful naked woman, or would you rather hear about a lady with poop running down her legs? 

Last year I went into a screening of “The Housemaid” not understanding why people were obsessed with her, and then there was a naked scene and I understood better than I have ever understood anything in my life. After the movie, three complete strangers and I bonded together over the brassiere lore that girls learn in junior high — the pencil test — and how it all suddenly made sense to us now, after seeing Sydney Sweeney take off her shirt.
This was a few months after Sweeney’s American Eagle ad campaign that some saw as racially coded (it was a pun on “genes” and “jeans”); we live in incredibly interesting times.
Actual female athletes hated the campaign. They’re out there fighting for the right to wear wedgie-free leotards or play beach handball in something other than Baywatch costumes, and Sydney Sweeney seemed to be encouraging the idea that the best protection for a female hockey goalie is a pair of tighty-whities. 

“idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like,” former NCAA gymnast Gracie Kramer wrote on social media, accompanying a supercut of herself flipping, running, boxing, and playing soccer and baseball.
Sweeney responded with her own Instagram story, which is no longer available for viewing but which apparently showed a compilation of professional athletes who have posed in the nude for editorial photo spreads. 

When we look at Sweeney, we think about how we feel. When we look at Wietrzyk, we think about how she must feel.

O.K.  I find this all sorts of silly fun.  It's just sex, as I like to say, but ideology, too.  They make a fiery combo.  But here's why I think it is kind of backwards.  I have yet to hear any criticism of gambling.  Sweeney's tits are the problem?  Gambling's the problem, I think, as is/are professional sports in general.  College students making millions of dollars to play football?  Have you ever looked at the graduation rates of those kids?  If you'd watch more little league baseball, those kids could be making money, too.  If nothing else is on, people will watch professional horse shoes, and bet on it, too.  But how many times has the fix been in?  Pro boxing is famous for it, but it infects team sports, as well.  Let's face it, it's really about the money, and Sweeney probably got paid more than all the women athletes criticizing her combined.  It is not about athletics.  It's about money.  Pro athletes are entertainers in a country that is entertaining itself to death.  We've elected an entertainer as president.  Not once, but twice.  And he's filled his cabinet with t.v. personalities.  

Yea, I think the whole thing is backwards.  I think athletics are fine.  Colleges have always promoted them.  Healthy body, healthy mind, and all that.  But now, the money is the thing.  Do you know how much a college football coach is paid?  Do you know how much more his salary is than the average professor at the same school?  

If women want to run around basketball courts naked, wearing shorts, wearing trousers, or wearing hijabs, whatever they want is fine with me.  But I find it weird that some female athlete whose name hardly anyone knows is taking pot shots at Sweeney instead of the whole money/entertainment deal.  Sweeney, just like the athlete, has only a little bit of time to stand in the sun.  Our bodies betray us quick enough.  Let everybody enjoy what those bodies will do while they can.  

There was a time when I couldn't wait to take off my clothes.  I was an o.k. athlete.  I never got paid for either thing, though I was offered money once to be a male stripper.  Oh, I was asked if I wanted to work in a porn movie, too, but I never gave them a chance to view the merchandise.  

I promise you, you wouldn't enjoy seeing me naked now.  

So kids, quit your squabbling.  If it weren't for the money, you'd all be playing sports and taking off your clothes for the fun of it, for free, and we would still be delighted.  And that, I think, is how it should be.

Thank you brothers and sisters of the congregation for your attention today.  I hope the lesson has landed well.  Greed is bad.  I think it is one of the ten commandments or one of the deadly sins--I'm not certain.  It could be both.  

Let's end with another bad photograph, the tall tattooed lady driving past me in her car, mugging the camera.  

Oh. . . this came up on my YouTube feed last night.  Everybody gets old. Here's Krall doing "Temptation" some years after the other version.  Stripped down.  Lower energy.  She has gotten bigger, fuller, slower, but she's still out there fighting for the title.  She's colored her hair.  I like it.  This is not exactly raging against the dying of the light, but it is something, and I love her version of this song.  I can resist everything but. . . . 

Lucky

I'm excited as hell to show you my latest mistake.  Not kidding.  It is not a good photograph in any way, shape, or form.  That ain't it.  But the goddamn thing is rich in color.  Let me give you the back story.  A lot of back story. 

I had a lucky day, not at all ending after I took this photo.  As I complained yesterday before I apologized for being a wanker (thy burden is greater than mine--did you listen to the song?), I thought my day to be fucked.  I took my mother to a bank across town (always across town) to renew a CD.  It was the bank where I had the trouble getting them to accept my Power of Attorney, and I don't like doing business with the people who work there now, but it is my mother's money and my mother's decision and she hasn't experienced any trouble with them, so I don't press the issue.  I got my mother's walker out of the car and got her up and over a six inch curb where there was no ramp for her to easily gain access, and got her through two sets of non-automatic doors allowing entry to the building which is probably against the law somewhere.  Just everything about the place pisses me off.  When we entered the bank which is one of a conglomeration of businesses in this multi-story building, I saw the villainous bank man we would have to deal with.  

"Hello.  My mother needs to renew a CD," I announced.  And then the surprise. 

"Of course.  Have a seat.  Mr. S********, isn't it?"

WTF?  I guess I must have made a lasting impression.  

"No, it is my mother's name."

Other than remembering my name, he seemed lost in the whole thing and had to pull records and look her account up.  There had been no foreshadowing of our coming in.  Nope.  The fucker hadn't forgotten me. 

In the end, when all business was finished, he said, "You didn't need to come in.  It would have rolled over at that rate."

I was tempted to tell him I just wanted to see his miserable rat face again, but I said, "My mother likes to get out of the house."

When we got back to my mother's house, I put on my gym clothes.  If I hurried, I would have time to get home and shower before the maids arrived.  Then I would have to hurry back to mother's in time to get her to her cardiologist's appointment.  

When I got to the gym, I checked my phone. I had a voicemail.  It was from the cardiology office.  The doctor had an emergency and they needed to change my mother's appointment.  

Bravo. 

At the end of my workout, being the fat fucker that I have become, I needed to get on the treadmill and burn some calories, but as I was in a hurry, I had an idea--walk 1/10th of a mile, run 1/10th of a mile at a 12 minute mile pace.  I would look silly, I was sure, but if I did this for a mile, I'd be done in 15 minutes.  I could only pray that my knee would bear it.  

Oh, brothers and sisters, it was damn near perfect. My knee seemed to hold up and I was feeling the first touch of endorphins.  If I could run, I would not be fat, I promise.  It doesn't just speed up the metabolism, but it cuts my need for alcohol.  I left the gym with a plan.  

I'm sure to fuck up, though.  I will get excited and do too much and need a new knee sooner than I'd like.  But for that day. . . oo-la-la.  

I finished showering and dressing just as the maids arrived, and after a chat, I headed out for the Cafe Strange.  It was raining slightly, so I made a number of car pictures along the way.  When I pulled into the parking lot, there was a big puddle reflecting the sky right by the road with the liquor store just across the street.  I grabbed the Leica and set the shutter speed to 1/15 of a second. I framed up the shot and waited for a car to come by.  Then another.  Then another.  When I looked up, however, there was a car waiting to turn into the parking lot where I was standing and blocking the entrance.  Oops. 

"Sorry, sorry," I said and waved in embarrassment, but the woman in the car laughed as she drove past me and said, "I was waiting for you to get the picture."  

It was the tall goony girl who works here.  Or used to.  I don't know.  I haven't seen her here for a very, very long time, but I hardly ever come anymore, and maybe she only works nights.  But she was smiling at me and laughing and I pointed the camera at her passing as she mugged for the camera.  She must have her medications figured out for she was absolutely nice.  As I walked by her car, though, I saw a bumper sticker on the back that said, "Bitch By Choice."  

Yea.  

I went inside to a quiet cafe.  A man who is always there, an inevitable man who is always dressed in either blue or green hospital scrubs, a man in his fifties, perhaps, who sits with a laptop and looks concernedly through his glasses getting up often to walk around, was standing in front of me at the counter chatting with the working woman.  He is one of four or five people who are always here doing the same thing.  It is their cafe, I guess, as in an old French novel, and I imagine they spend three or four dollars to sit the entire day taking up prime tables.  When the fellow felt my presence behind him, he moved over and said, "Oh. . . sorry."  

I smiled and said something pleasantly innocuous.  The woman behind the counter is always friendly and we chatted as she prepared my coffee.  Then the tall goony girl walked in, and holy smokes, she looked like what used to be called a million dollars, but with inflation. . . .  She towered over the room with her long legs and short short short skirt that barely covered her bottom.  She seemed to have gotten taller and looked at least six-four.  But there was something else different about her, too.  She walked behind the counter and began chatting with the other woman, and it seemed I and my order were all but forgotten.  I noticed that her hair was longer and styled differently, but there was more. Oh, she had let her eyebrows grow in rather than shaving them off, and now she was wearing makeup.  She was making herself a coffee, and as the two women worked with their back to me, I could see plainly the tattoos on the back of the tall girls thighs.  Were those new or had I never seen her legs so well displayed before?  Then I remembered my camera.  

Without looking, I nervously fired off a few shots.  My impulse was to ask the tall girl, "How much are you charging for pictures now," to be funny, but I have been wearing my balls like a bow tie lately when I have my camera.  

Now for a momentary interlude.  I know a lot of people look at the blog on their phones.  O.K.  Two things there.  I don't think that "a lot of people" are looking at the blog and I don't know how many do it on their phones, but I do know that a lot of people use their phones rather than a computer to browse the internet, and I don't think the images I've been posting have the same impact at one and a half by one inch in size.  It would be difficult to see, for instance, how short the skirt is in this photo on a phone.  Just saying. 

When the tall girl finished making her coffee, she walked from behind the counter, across the parking lot, and got into her car, and I was sad thinking that she was surely going to come sit at my table and flirt a bit with me.  I am sure she wanted to.  Trust me.  I have an instinct for these things.  

Now the back story is over, but the tale is not, and I will come back to the photos as a terribly lucky mistake in a bit. 

As the day was rainy and the cafe fairly empty, I was able to get a nice table facing the big plate glass window that overlooked the street.  At the table before me between my table and the window sat a girl facing me. She worked at a big clunker of an old laptop, a brick of one, and as I stared at the street, I had to try not to look at her working there. I thought about what I had re-read by Salter the night before about observing and paying attention to details a reader needs to identify with a person or a character, and I tried to be observant and descriptive and to write it down, but nothing really came to me.  Was it me or had I just been here too many times before to see?  Then I decided to describe the woman before me.  I wrote her for a long time as well as I could for several pages in my journal and thought that would make today's blog, but the journal is in the car and this post is getting long and I don't need to make it longer with a description that needs much rewriting anyway, so I'll leave that alone for now.  

I looked at the time.  Three o'clock.  I had an idea that I didn't want to cook dinner.  I made pork chops the night before, but they were thick pork chops.  I don't like thick pork chops, but that was all that was available at the meat counter.  I cooked them well, but they were dry and tasteless and disappointing, and I thought maybe we'd have something for dinner that had a little more zest. I decided to drive to Whole Foods and pick out some prepared meals.  I'd get something good.  

As I drove across town, I had another idea, too.  There is a little sub shop that has been around since god knows when, maybe the 1950s.  I have never eaten there and never would, but it has become an institution and the small parking lot is always full.  I had never been inside, but I knew it would be old diner style and I made up my mind to drive there and go inside and make some photographs.  As I got closer, though, I began to wear that bow tie again.  Maybe I would just walk in and have a look, you know, just "scout" the place out. When I pulled into the small parking lot, two outdoor tables of people looked up at me. They know, I thought.  So I left my camera in the car and forced myself to walk inside.  

The place couldn't have been smaller or older or dirtier.  There were two men working behind the counter, one at the grill, and one of them said, "Welcome."  I almost faltered, then asked, "Would it be ok if I took a couple of photos in here?"

"What kind of photos?"

Oh shit, here we go. 

"You know, a camera. . . pictures."  I was stammering.  

He looked at me like I was a three legged duck, then said with uncertainty, "Alright."

I went to the car and got my Leica.  When I walked back into the shop, neither of the men said anything as I took a few photos of the tiny counter and stools feeling myself a fool, then thanked them and went back to the car. 

"There you go!" I said to myself.  The pictures would be nothing, but I had done it.  Big Balls in Cowtown.  They had dropped a bit, maybe not all the way, but some.  I would do more and maybe they fall all the way back to where they belonged.

Inside Whole Foods, I went straight to the prepared meals section.  I'd seen them and knew they were there, but I'd never bought them before.  As it turned out, they have a large selection.  I looked and decided to by three dinners as one might not be enough and we could split the third.  As I chose, a pretty woman in what I assumed was hospital garb, the sort that nurses and technicians now wear, came over and asked me, "Are these ALL half off?"

"I don't know."

She pointed to a sign that said "Every Tuesday--By One and Get 50% Off the Second."

"Oh. . . "

"You didn't even know they were on sale?"

"No. But I guess I should get four instead of three."

She was chatting me up.  She looked me in the eyes.  I was wearing a bow tie again.  She was no kid, and she was probably married with a family at home, but I wanted to ask her to have dinner with me.  Of course, I could barely speak to her, mumbling, stumbling.  I am very timid and shy around women.  I love them so, but I never believe. . . .

And then she was gone.  And soon enough, so was I.  

After the cafe, I had stopped at the liquor store to buy a pack of cheroots.  I haven't smoked one all year, maybe longer, but when I got back to the house, I wanted to sit for a moment and have a beer and a smoke, just sit out on my own deck and enjoy it if only briefly.  As I sat, I gazed out on the posts for the fence my neighbor was putting up. It had blown down long ago in a hurricane and I didn't want to have another, but he wanted one which I understood, so the carpenter who had worked on my house for so long was putting it up.  He would do a fabulous job, not using Home Depot pre-made sections but putting each board on one by one.  As I sat looking, though, I realized that the posts were too high.  He was putting in a six foot fence where there had been a four foot one before, and I realized I'd be shut in like an animal in a box.  I called the carpenter then talked to my neighbor and we got that all worked out.  It was not a problem, but if I had taken my mother to the cardiologist, I would not have noticed this and the next day it would have been too late.  And so, as I said earlier, I felt it to be a very lucky day.  

I sat then relaxed and happy and drank my beer and smoked my cheroot, and when they were done, I went inside to dump the photos I had taken that day into the computer.  

And now I'll get to the point.  The camera settings were good for the photos of the cars streaking by the puddle, but they were not good for photographing the tall pretty girl in her car as she drove by.  Drats. Nor were they good at all for the photos I took inside the cafe.  I'd had to set the aperture at f16, and I had been too nervous to even think about that.  When I looked at the photos on the screen, they were black. Only the light of the tv and of the coolers barely showed.  But here's the thing--people say you should always underexpose digital photographs because you can recover details in the shadows but you can't get anything from blown out highlights. There is a movie that is beautifully photographed by a cinematographer who shot everything two stops underexposed .  I decided to see what I could get out of these basically black photos.  

Voila!  The photos were shit, of course, but oh my oh my the colors were rich.  Was this something I should have known all along?  Well, I knew it now, so yea, that was my lucky mistake.  The entire day had been lucky.  I don't get many days like that now.  Maybe admitting that I am a wanker the day before changed my luck. 

Even driving back to my mother's house, things went swimmingly, and the college jazz station was swinging.  I heard this woman in a club one night when she was big.  The opening act was Gillian Welch and David Rawlings which is why I went. Rawlings and I had a drink together at the bar.  

Just bragging.  I'm sure he remembers.  He probably brings it up to his friends.

And so, Nora Jones and David Rawlings many, many years later.  

Oh, shit--I forgot to say the at the Whole Foods dinners were truly good.  That was a stroke of luck, too. 

Petty Little Things

Let's begin with this.  It's crazy good, I think.  

Other than that, I've pretty much nothing today to tell you.  I have plenty that I won't, but nothing of real interest.  Shall I opine?  

The Sidney Sweeney sports betting ad controversy: Female athletes are speaking out against the "sexualization" but are saying nothing about the gambling.  I find that a bit backwards. 

Colleges confused about A.I.: The problem with A.I. in education is lazy faculty who can't figure out how to change their modes and methods to incorporate A.I. as an enhancement to learning.  It drives me crazy. 

Bernie Sanders concern, "What happens when an AI or an AI swarm creates its own language and we humans can’t decipher it?":  There are many A.I. systems, not one.  One will decipher what the other one does.  Turn the channel.  

Who will win the mid-terms?: I promise you we are fucked either way.  But I think fear mongering will win the day.  

A Russian Oligarch paid for Don Jr.'s wedding after party: Duh! 

The Emmys:  I will try, but I don't think I'll like any of the winning shows.  The ones I did like barely got a mention.  Commercial television has taken over streaming.  Really good shows don't get big enough audiences and are cancelled tout suite.  

NFL Football: I watch the condensed version of games on YouTube.  There are no commercials.  Oh, unless you are one of the people who doesn't pay for a subscription.  I don't know how anyone can sit and watch a football game where far more than half of what they watch is commercial content.  I really don't. 

Trump's concubine:  I can't remember her name, but that's what you are concerned about?  

The U.S. announces it has put weapons in space: I'll bet we aren't the only ones.  

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Did you know that this poem is really easy to rap?  Try it.  You'll see.  

That's about it. I have to get ready to take my mother to the bank this morning and then to a cardiologist's appointment at 2:30 which means my day is fucked.  But it could be worse.  I should look on the brighter side of things.  I don't need to clean a sewer or dig a ditch.  I just have to drive and sit, and yet all I do is piss and moan and whine.  I'm a little wanker, I am.  

The "Art" of Living

Man alive, I've got some good images to share, but we'll start with this little dandy I made with my iPhone yesterday while sitting in the garage with ma.  Never underestimate the iPhone.  It's not just "better than nothing."  It plays a good part in the art of photography.  

"Art ?!?"

You know what I mean.  

I slept poorly last night, though, so the writing may be a little off.  I slept well from ten 'til two, then it was a torture, so I got up at 3:30 and read a bit.  This is something new to me.  I will usually just stay in bed and try to ride it out, but that wasn't working last night.  I went to the living room and read for about ten or fifteen minutes.  That was all it took.  When I went back to bed, I fell asleep, off and on, and didn't get out of bed again until eight.   

So we will see how it goes.   

I didn't go to any markets yesterday.  Once I made up my mind about this, I felt some relief.  If I'd gone, maybe I would have gotten into a rhythm and a groove, but it didn't feel that way at all.  I decided to take a long walk instead.  By the time I had made up my mind, however, it was well after noon and the sun was beating down like a hammer and the air was a wet wool blanket, but I didn't mind, for it would have been the same or worse in a crowded market place, so I felt I'd made a capital choice.  

I didn't carry a camera on my walk, either.  That was also a relief.  I walked a bit and ran a bit, not an actual run but an old man walk/run that is running in name only as it is just about the same pace as walking only you appear to be running in some silly, awkward way.  I read an article, though, that said running, even at a 20 minute mile pace, gave much greater health benefits than simply walking. 

I must assume they meant if your knees are good.  And back.  Mine are not.  

But for the moment, I felt more alive, so there was that.  

When I got home, I was a sweaty mess, so I decided to drink some electrolytes and sit at the computer working on a couple pictures until my body had settled down.  And oh. . . well I'll show you.  Just one. 

Now if you don't like the car photos, you probably have already cancelled your subscription here, but I am fairly excited by this. I dragged the shutter, as they say, as I shot out the window of a moving car in the rain.  Oh, hell. . . another. 

I lost myself in these for a bit until I was shivering from the fan and ac and drying sweat.  By the time I had finished showering and beautifying, it was nearing four.  I had told my mother I would take her to the grocers with me that afternoon so she could stock up on things she likes.  I was going to make a seafood stew for dinner, and we would get all of those ingredients, too.  I buy all the groceries otherwise, but the cod, scallops, and shrimp were very expensive.  The sum total of our visit was a bit astronomical, but we had filled a cart to overflowing. 

Which meant I had a lot of unpacking to do when we got back to her house.  

And then I chopped vegetables and prepared the stock and wine and got things started.  

And then. . . Lagunitas, Little Sumpin'.  

In half an hour, the carrots and potatoes and celery and onion were done.  It was to add the seafood which only needed to cook for three minutes, so I tasted the broth to see what it needed, and by the time I'd set the table, the stew was ready.  A good seafood stew is really easy to make. . . and awfully expensive.  

But what isn't now?  Thanks, Trump and all of you who voted for him--three effing times!

I fear Trump or his people are now reading the blog.  After I posted yesterday, Trump said the same thing about A.I. evolution as I had.  The Times needs to pick up on this.  What is coming is inevitable. 

Maybe those photographs aren't great, but they do excite me. That is the lake I sit by to watch the moon and listen to the night, a southern cypress shoreline on a chain of lakes miles long, connected by creeks and canals hundreds of years old.  When my house was built in 1927, people still hunted in the woods surrounding some of them.  Those woods are gone now, even the ones that were a preserve when I first moved to town, but when the last of the older generation of the wealthy family died, the children decided to sell it off to the highest bidder.  One of my neighbors was the head of The Nature Conservancy at the time, and they tried to buy it, but they were outbid by developers.  Now megamillion dollar homes line the far shore.  Developers ALWAYS get what they want.  It may take awhile, but they do.  If you have ever tried to fight a development, you know what I mean.  Nothing trumps money and stupidity.  Not in the long run.  

When I took this photo, I think I must have thought it said "GREED."  

I've been re-reading a book Travis gave me, the lectures of James Salter for "The Art of Fiction" series.  It breaks my heart.  I want to begin again, to pay more attention to things I've seen and done and said.  And it is crazy, for as much as I love his writing, I am not in any way enamored of the writer himself.  Nor he me, if you ask Q.  The way he presents the work of other writers, though, shows him to be a better reader than most, a true student of the craft of fiction.  I'm sure that all the insights are not his own, but he has collected them well and I'm certain amplified them in his own way.  He speaks of drafts and of rewriting and of the time one must spend writing and not living and of what is lost in the process for the little gain, if there comes any at all.  Why do people write?  

His is very honest about this.  It is the desire, he says, to be admired and loved.  

To wit--Proust.  As I've said many times before. . . but then I saw this.  I may have to give him another go.  

The Lost Weekend

The weekend never happened.  My cousin bailed inside twenty-four hours.  By 1:30 Saturday afternoon, I was back on duty with mom.  My one night at home cost me time and effort and money.  I will have to pay the maids full price this time 'round as I have slept in the bed and cooked in the kitchen.  Hanging out with my mother attached to your hip for an extended period is more than people not endentured can endure, I guess.  I just didn't expect her to tap out this quickly.  

I was sorely disappointed.  Can you imagine?  I mean, can you imagine that going to your own house would seem like an exotic vacation?  

So I splurged on dinner.  Top sirloin, grass fed, organic.  $30/lb.  But I know how to cook a steak now.  Did I tell you?  I know.  Once again, you could (almost) cut it with a fork.  Not really, but it was tender and juicy and tasty.  

Dinner was eaten in virtual silence, however.  My mother hasn't much to say and can't hear much of what is said.  I'd yell that the steak was really good and she would nod.  

That photo at the top is me at the hipster film lab just before I got my hair cut again.  I don't like the way I look just now.  It isn't just the hair, though I am going to grow it out again, but the face.  I've aged drastically.  As one will, I guess, but I blame it on current conditions.  How much stress can an old guy stand?  I try to have a lot of backbone, but it is becoming bent under the pressure.  These sideward whispers for pity will become shouted cries for help soon enough.  

"I WANT TO LIVE, FUCKER!"

But will we?  I have friends fretting about A.I. now.  A.I. isn't going to kill us.  People will.  They will weaponize A.I. to take or keep wealth and power.  The world is bending the knee to dictators around the world.  Do you think if the West pauses A.I. research that China and Iran and India and North Korea and Russia will?  Hell, kids in grade school can code.  When the shit hits the fan, when A.I. drones are flying overhead, do you think Trump will hesitate to start dropping nukes?  Don't be silly.  We live on a dying planet with weapons of mass destruction.  I shouldn't really complain about taking care of my mother.  It's just that I'd like to have a last dance before the fire rages.  

Given my circumstances, I've begun a series of photos taken from my car.  Let's try a few.  

I like this one a lot.  I rather despise photographers who try to tell you why their photo works or is good, so I'll try not to do that here.  Tempted, though.  

I do like the layers and the bland chaos of them.  

Oops.  

I have a lot more, of course, but I'll save them.  I don't want to overwhelm you.  You'll be begging me for more at some point, once you get your pretty little heads around the concept.  You'll see.  There will be a book, I'm sure, at some point, but you will be able to brag that you were among the first to see and appreciate the images.  

Good for you.  Or is it "good on you"?  Those Brits are weird.  

I should say, these are made with a digital Leica.  I've taken it up again.  But when I place a digitally captured image next to an image taken with film, even though the film image has been digitized, I can see a big difference.  Digital images are just "too good."  I was surprised, really, at how different they really are.  Maybe today I'll make some film pics from the car to show you.  What the hell, right?  As I say, given my current situation and all. 

Sunday.  There are markets all about town.  My desire is to go into them with camera.  I don't know if I have it in me, though.  It will be dreadfully hot and I have no confidence.  I look like someone you wouldn't be afraid to yell at.  And then there's the parking.  And I don't even want to go in for a mimosa now.  I'd feel like a creeper.  

I'm just feeling very, very small. 

But it was glorious being home on Friday night.  There were treats and music and images to work on.  I miss it all.  Working to the music. . . I can't begin to explain.  I enter into a trance, a small bite of Nirvana.  It was the first time I have gotten to see the new house across the street at night.  The owner spent over $300,000 on landscaping and another I don't know how much on lighting.  It is fairly magical.  

But I'm back at mother's now. It is beige with mismatched colors.  Beige walls, beige wall to wall carpet, beige furniture, then some bright throw rugs and flowered things.  Beige blinds.  I think the lighting might be beige, too. 

It is nice.  

Now I must attend to mother.  I'll leave after our late breakfast and try to be a photographer.  I think I will make a seafood stew tonight.  Cha-ching!  But food is "what we've got," and so it should be something good.  There will be the cooking and the cleaning and then the television, my mother always in the corner of my eye.  

I'll leave you with this.  Remember I've told you how much I like the way the kids at the vintage markets costume?  This was in today's N.Y. Times.  

"What trends are you seeing among college students and Gen Z?

There is a lot of talk right now about how young people dress in this placeless, context-free mishmash. We call it “Gen Z chaos” in the office. When I was in college, your clothes reflected who you were, what you were into, what music you liked, what hobbies you had. I think you can’t really look at someone and glean that info anymore. There’s a lot of cobbling together thrifted clothes, stuff you’ve bought off TikTok Shop, making a shirt you inherited from a sibling into something that looks, well, interesting, perhaps rather than good. (Sorry!)"

I'll do what I can to get a photo or two, but don't count on it.  

Here's a little Sunday music to start the day.  I used to love lazy Sundays with my Own True Love.  Great brunches, a little wandering,  mid-afternoon of loving and napping.  Waking to an easy cocktail and a light dinner of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  Weekend flowers filling the rooms.  Plans for upcoming trips we would take.  Then maybe a movie at home as we resigned ourselves to the coming Monday, and bed, once again, to spoon.  

Fuck yea.  I miss that.  

Back to Bed

Here's the photo I should have posted yesterday, I think.  It looks a bit 9/11ish.  Early morning, though, and I hadn't thought about it.  I began to think about it after reading an article reporting that the cloud of toxic debris from the falling towers has caused the city's residents lasting health problems.  

Whoever could have doubted it?  

It is like living with the idea that you are going to die.  You don't want to think about it.  

"You'll be fine."

The hazards of life are many.  Last night, I watched a couple documentaries about sex and drugs in Georgian England.  Gin, opioids, and syphilis.  An estimated one in five persons had the disease.  It was incurable and viciously attacked the organs of the body.  Famously noses would rot away, but it would also eat into the bones and cause terrible pain.  Hence the need for alcohol and opioids.  Laudanum was available from chemists and barbers upon request.  Opium was widely used.  Gin was drunk by the pint glass.  The average lifespan was thirty to forty years though it was possible to live into one's sixties.  What a terrible existence.  

But they had their fun.  

I just got curious and looked up STDs in other mammals.  Yup.  Horses, monkeys, rabbits, and even dolphins.  It seems there is great evidence that human gonorrhea came from cows. 

Stump broke, I assume.  

Sex is a dirty business no matter how you look at it.  Humans are depraved.  

Then they die.  

Now the great fear is Death by A.I.  Really?  I have a difficult time calling up such a scenario.  But if I had to choose, I like the idea of us all going together.  I've said it before; this one at a time thing is bullshit.  

I slept in my own home last night, but I stayed up far too late, and now I think I will go back to bed.  I'll tell you about my weekend once I've had it.  I'm far too tired now.  And so. . . .

Weekend

It's my first "weekend" in a very long time.  My cousin is coming over from the coast to visit my mother.  You'd think I'd be excited to have a few days at home, but that is far from the case.  I will sleep in my bed, but my house is basically a museum at present.  It looks like a home, but the cupboards are bare.  I will have to supply it for two days.  Coffee for the unused coffee maker that will need to be cleaned.  What else?  I'll need to bring meds and supplements, of course, or maybe not supplements.  I will have to make at least two trips back to my mother's house a day for her meds.  I'll need to have dinner with them one night, I guess.  But my evenings will be free.  What will I do?  I could visit some new places that have opened, or I could sit at the computer listening to music and working on photos.  Or . . . or. . . . 

I am sure to be paralyzed.  

And then it will be back to routine.  The entire prospect is causing me anxiety.  I'm on a two day shore leave, really.  That is all. 

So, I read that Vance thrilled the MAGA crowd last night.  He is sure to be the next president.  I despair.  I am seriously considering not voting for the first time since I was able to vote.  I voted for McGovern.  You see how that turned out.   I am torn between political poles right now.  I am a liberal patriot, you see.  I love this country's freedoms and fortunes, but I see them being destroyed by both parties.  Do I vote for the clown car of t.v. personalities or for the Death to America crowd?  I could take positions from both parties and make something that represents my views, but the wells are poisoned by ideologues and crooks, and I fear too much that this country is doomed.  

Crooked elections?  You bet.  The one that elected Bush over Gore.  That was the most corrupt election since Kennedy beating Nixon based on votes delivered by Mayor Daily in Chicago.  No wonder Nixon tried to cheat in an election he was sure to win by a landslide.  

But none of those sent me into the spiral of despair I feel at present.  "Fire and Ice."  Frost knew.  

I'll bet you can predict what will happen to me on this weekend's shore leave.  It is easy.  What happens to a sailor who gets to go ashore for the first time in years?  He still has sea legs.  He gets drunk, gets a tattoo he'll later regret, maybe pick up an STD, and goes to the brig for doing something heinous.  Shore leave never works out for those who want to have fun.  The smarter thing for a sailor to do is just to appreciate the solid world for a day or two without any expectation.  Maybe go sightseeing, have a good meal, get back to the ship before curfew and savor the time.  

I won't be getting a tattoo or an STD.  I'm pretty sure of that.  But I'm certain to have some amount of disorientation all the while.  

I am not certain you can understand.  

I did not feel well yesterday.  My mother just told me she is not feeling well today.  She's clammy, she says.  I wonder if I am picking up some little bug at the gym now that the kids are back in school.  Moms and dads spread illness, too, and maybe I'm bringing the back to my mother.  We will get our shots in October.  Fingers crossed until then.   

I wish I had known earlier that my cousin was coming.  I could have planned something, but I only found out last night.  

I went to one of my financial centers yesterday to take care of some business, or, rather, to find out how to. I felt I had accomplished something.  I was proud.  When I finished, it was three o'clock.  My belly cramped.  What to do?  I would have only a little time before I went back to mother's.  I didn't want to sit in the house until then, so I went to the cafe and got a French soda.  The girl behind the counter was one I had wanted to photograph with her girlfriend years ago when they were working in the kitchen, cool punk looking girls who had a band.  I hadn't seen her for. . . how long?  I live in a time warp now, but it seemed like a year or more.  I remember when she first started working the counter.  She didn't know how to make most of the coffee drinks.  She was uncertain as kids can be.  Now, she has lost her girlishness, and she wears some of the world on her countenance.  It seemed a pity to me, but there was a bonus--she knew how to make the French soda.  But as happens, some of the glee has left her eyes.  They have dulled.  Less lilt in her movements as she learns to plod.  As happens to the vast majority, and this I say with great dread, what is lost is not nearly made up for by what is gained.  Only here and there is the trade equal or even sometimes good.  I knew a girl once I nicknamed "Eden."  She lived purely before the fall.  I saw her a few years later.  Oh, she was certainly postlapsarian then.  There was surely a touch of evil there.  

Maybe even wickedness.  

But who am I to judge?  

I do like those who try to make their lives a work of art and or adventure.  As Bukowski said, what matters is how well you walk through the fire.  We all get ravaged by the flames, don't we?  

I was texting with C.C. before writing this.  I told him I needed to go and write my daily stain upon the silence.  I said it would probably be much of what I had written him.  

Such was not the case.  This is as always, the spontaneous outpouring of a bedeviled brain.  Unscripted.  Unplanned.  Unedited.  

Uninspired.  

But yesterday I went back and read parts of the blog I have posted this year.  Sometimes, I thought, there is a bit of inspiration there, and I can't figure out why the world had not caught on and why I am not being carried shoulder high through the town square.  

But today, I think of the plodding, of the craven greed of one party and the bitterness of the other, and of the hatred of each, and I am not so certain about wanting to be carried shoulder high by the throng above the throng.   

I'll settle for a little cafe where we can sit and chat.  

Can an Image Be Sexual?

"Some souls must be sacrificed in the making of art and to the artist who makes it."

Do I believe that?  I might if I believed there was such a thing as "art."  But I do believe in creativity--or I think I do.  Maybe.  Ingenuity?  Some sort of impulse?  

Ego?

I started thinking about this because of an article a friend sent me a couple days ago (link).  I felt it might be a provocation, and I landed on this statement concerning Brooke Shield's Calvin Klein ad: 

“The marketing’s reception underscored the public’s capacity for moral outrage while also proving that sex sells: Even as networks pulled the ads, demand for the jeans skyrocketed.”

And so I sent that back with the following statement:

"Everything, it often seems, is a battle between sensuality and ideology.  As a self-proclaimed iconoclast, I can fall on either side of the fence. . . but most often. . . 😈 "

 Moral outrage is a form of insanity, I believe, and is incredibly dangerous.  

"When the American actress Brooke Shields was 15, her appearance in a 1980 Calvin Klein Jeans campaign brought the controversy already swirling around her — about the sexualization of minors in the media, largely on account of her starring role, at age 12, as a child coerced into prostitution in Louis Malle’s 1978 film, “Pretty Baby” — to a fever pitch."

As Lou Reed might say, "those were different times."  Have you seen the movie in its original form?  Oh, my!  Did you see Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet", 1968?  

Remember this?  Or even worse, the old Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs?  

Well, thank god we have moved on.  

Oh, shit. . . wait a minute.

“You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”

So yea. . . we put them in underwear.  Now something does.  Not the Mormon sort, but better than nothing.  

Some would have it that art should be polemic in the service of an ideology "for good."  I want it all.  I want more than what there is.  I want to see anything taboo.  I want to see the things that piss people off.  I may not like it, and I may squint and only look for a millisecond, but. . . I would not ban it.  Not even bad porn.  Hell, I don't like watching porn at all, but those 8mm films from the '50s are really something else. And "back in the day," Jim Linderman's "Dull Tool Dim Bulb" blog with its collection of erotic postcards made schmaltz interesting.  

But as I wrote, I could come down on either side of things.  Art and literature are not for everyone.  

Speaking of which, I have been reading more of "The Book of Disquiet."  I like it more now that I am deeper into it.  It is not a book of beautiful prose; rather, it is a book of ideas.  He says the same thing many times over but with subtle differences.  I'm determined to finish the book now.  I am at times inspired by and other times argumentative with what he puts forth, but either way, my brain is working which it hasn't for quite some time.   I'll have more to say about that, I am certain. 

One thing that confuses me is when critics use the word "sexual" in talking about an image, words like "hypersexualized," etc.  I don't think an image can be sexual.  It might be sensual, but that is a different thing.  It confuses me as much as the subject/object distinction.  Who is the subject when one is looking at a picture?  What is the object?  I've struggled to understand this since reading Bergson and others.  I get that some want to go beyond the image and talk about it's production whether in Marxist terms or other, but there is a great deal of uncertainty there.  Or so it seems to me.  

I'm probably naive or worse, wrong.  I read an article in the Times this morning about the terrible amount of waste and pollution that goes into making fashion clothing.  If fashion is art, we can look beyond the art to its production.  There is a physical accountability.  

I'll need to give this much more thought.  I'm tripping over my own thoughts now.  That's what I get for talking out loud.  But I'll let you all discuss this amongst yourselves for now.  We can take this up later at the cafe over coffee and cigarettes and absinthe.  

I'll bring the dueling pistols just in case.  

Remember I told you that I was looking forward to being disappointed when I got my two rolls of film back?  I wasn't disappointed.  Or I was.  This is a tough language riddle to untangle.  Let's try this another way.  Remember I told you that I hoped to have one good photo?  Yea.  This is the best of the twenty-four photos.  Am I still in love with the Hasselblad?  I think so.  Am I still in love with film?  

I'll give it more time.  But it is expensive.  I don't mind black and white so much because I always develop and scan it myself, so the investment is largely time.  I've been taking the color film to the lab, though, and to have it developed and scanned by them is expensive.  I've developed my own color film at home, but it is more difficult.  If I am going to continue shooting color film, I'm going to developing it on my own.  But I have to say, this lab does a really good job.  I have no complaints except for the amount of money I spend.  

I'm not saying that this is a good photograph.  I'm just saying it was the best of the lot, and I kind of like it. 

"I'd give it an 80.  I like the beat and it's easy to dance to."

That's for all you hepcats who remember Bandstand and Rate a Record.  Wouldn't it be fun to have an art show like that?  Maybe I can start a YouTube channel.  Just put a bunch of college kids in a room and let them grade the images.  

"What do you like about it?"

"I think the colors are nice and the way the light falls off at the bottom.  I think it is very moody."

I'll consider it. It would get me back interacting with kids again.  I'll call it The Last Picture Show.

YouTube is very restrictive, though.  There are a ton of rules you can't break or you get banned.  No nudity, no violence.  Yea. . . this would never fly.  If this were truly a free country. . . . 

What else do I have?  I went to lunch with T yesterday after the gym.  He was in town one last time and called in the morning to see if I wanted to go.  We went straight from the gym in gym clothes and didn't feel we should sit inside, so we took a sidewalk table at the sushi place on the Boulevard.  Our waitress was especially attentive and very nice.  We ordered green tea.  When I get green tea out, it is always better than the green tea I make at home, and I can't figure out why.  I think I make it too strong.  Miso soups and sushi rolls.  And suddenly we were among the bees.  Three of them, anyway.  Bees on the Boulevard?  Yea, when did that happen?  T kept swatting them away. 

"You're just riling them up," I said.  I left them alone, though I planned on killing them if they landed on me.  But bees don't bother you if you leave them alone.  I've even found that true with hornets which are among the most offensive of bees.  I think they are bees.  Maybe they are wasps.  I could look it up, but I'm not going to bother.  

O.K.  I couldn't resist. They are wasps.  So are the "meat bees" or yellow jackets that have plagued so many of my meals in Yosemite.  

But these were bees and not aggressive at all.  I watched one of them try the wasabi.  It didn't care for that at all.  They liked the soy sauce, though and stayed with us throughout the meal.  

The sushi place is on the Country Club College end of the Boulevard, so there was a pretty steady stream of coeds in hoochie shorts strolling by.  Believe me or don't, but Country Club College girls are not like coeds anywhere else, by and large because of their backgrounds.  This is not an Ivy League school, but it is a fine college and is just about as expensive, so it attracts a fun crowd.  The girls are a product of their environments, daddies with tons of money and beautiful mothers who were like pollen to the bee.  It is that combination that gives them their "air."  Their hair, their skin, their teeth are all from the pages of Vogue.  They are used to servants and have always had time for sports of one kind or another.  They walk and run through my neighborhood every day.  

Old guys, though, make a mistake because their dress code is so revealing.  These are not sexual beings, or so I have read, and the dress code is certainly to make you look, but not for the reasons that old guys think.  Those short short shorts are not an invitation.  They are bait.  Wherein lies the pleasure?  

"What the fuck are you looking at?"

I've seen old guys get schooled this way.  

I explained this to T as they walked by.  You could see their mouths tighten and their eyes cut sneakily toward the table as they walked by waiting for an opportunity.  I've observed it my entire life.  I used to get a state grant every summer to do a video project with high school kids for six weeks.  They came from different schools from all over the county, so the boys and girls did not know one another, but within a few days, things were heating up, and I'd watch the boys show off for the girls early on, and the girls would look on as if fascinated, and the boys would feel emboldened and alive.  Then, on a dime, the girls would look at one another and laugh derisively, and the boys were suddenly falling, falling through some trap door below their feet.  

In a few weeks, though, the flirtations took hold.  It was always fun to watch.  

Brad Pitt, I think, has a way in some of his movie rolls of not looking at women before he looks, and when he does, you can't nail what the look means.  That is a skill, anyway, that I have tried to cultivate.  With Pitt, it comes off as a confident uncertainty.  I have no idea how it comes off with me, but it seems to have kept me out of trouble.  

"Don't be creepy.  Don't lean in.  Don't reach.  Don't touch.  Keep your hands to yourself."

I observed old guys say things like, "You look like you need a back rub," when I was still a youth.  They would stare hard with laser eyes.  

"Uncle Bruce is a real creep."

O.K.  Jesus, this went off the rails.  Plenty to disagree with and criticize here.  I should have stayed with the bee thing.  Or photography.  

When we had finished eating and the waitress came to clear the table, she asked us if we would like more tea.  

"I put an extra tea bag in for you," she said when she brought the pot back.  And we were able to relax, for the bees left when the food was gone.  T was driving back to his beach house.  Tomorrow he and his wife go back to Tennessee.  They'd be back in November for a month, he said.  

I've eaten out more in the last week than I have in the past months.  It was fun, but it has gotten to be very expensive.  I have gotten a little electric shock with every bill.  The Asian marketplace with all the different kiosks isn't as bad, though, as long as you don't mind a little Asia belly.  Maybe it is something you get over if you eat there enough.  Cooking at home all the time as I do, my stomach is only used to the germs in my own kitchen, and believe me, there are plenty.  I've asked friends from Africa and South America and Mexico who now live here if they get sick when they go home.  The answer is overwhelmingly yes.  

I have an American belly.  Ha!  I made myself laugh.  I surely do.  It has gotten big.

I have to get ready to take my mother to the dentist now.  A cardiologist appointment lay ahead.  I need to make my own appointment for my annual physical.  I have put it off as long as I can.  I don't want to hear any bad news.  But there is only one direction in life, isn't there.  We live with the curse.  

I find some people are appreciating the video links I've been leaving, so here's another.  London, 1965.  Single girls sharing a flat.  They seem pretty hip for 1965, I think.  Surprisingly so.  The early Beatles era.  The BBC commentator would be flogged today, but it is a nice reminder of the time.  And so. . . .

Hair Folly

The morning coffee was good.  The gym was good.  My haircut was good.  The hamburgers and hotdogs were good.  

So why do I feel the way I do? 

Rhetorical question.  

Let's talk about my hair.  Well. . . I'll do the talking.  As I walked up to the door of the beauty salon, my little Jewish Russian, seeing me through the big glass window fronting the shop, came out to greet me.  She was all smiles, but. . . .

"How do you like your hair?"

"Depends on the day, the hour.  Sometimes it is o.k."

"It is lying flat on your head," she said.  She was already fussing with it before we got inside. 

She sat me in the chair and started looking, touching, thinking.  She's a real visual artist, and she was thinking hard about what to do.  

"Something is going on.  You've lost your curl.  I need to make some separation."

"I think it needs to be longer.  My hair needs weight."

Usually she colors my hair before she cuts it wet.  Today, she said, she needed to cut it dry.  I sat, complacent.  I felt it didn't really matter to me anymore.  I'm resigned to a life that hardly matters. 

She cut.  We talked.  She said I would need to start using product in my hair, maybe mousse.  I broke up when she said it, and she looked at me confused.  

"Oh. . . it's just that. . . have you ever seen the cartoon Rocky and Bullwinkle?  You sounded just like Boris when he says to Natasha 'moose and squirrel, moose and squirrel.'"

She laughed, but I wasn't sure.

I was in the chair for three hours--laugh, I don't care--and so we covered all aspects of our current lives.  So who's happy?  Life is hard.  You do what you do and suffer the consequences while other people wonder why you did it.  That's as close as I can come to understanding things, anyway.  

She cut, we talked, then she got the foil and the chemicals and painted my hair with a brush for longer than usual.  Then we sat while the chemicals did their jobs.  And we talked.  Once in awhile, she would get up, peel back some foil, and then get the brush and put on more goop.  And we talked.  When time was up, she washed my hair in the backwards sink, then we went back to the chair and she cut some more.  I pretty much kept my eyes closed or looked at the floor.  I didn't look in the big mirror in front of me.  

When she was done, she rubbed in some mousse.  And then. . . .

It looked like shit.  It was worse than it was before.  What to do?  She wet it and wanted me to do what I do messing up my hair with my fingers.  Nope.  She pulled out some product, some waxy, paste stuff, and rubbed it through my hair.   Now it was my turn.  

"Do what you do."

I did.  And it worked.  

She has come around to liking my messy bed head look.  I've always wanted hair that looks like the hair on Greek and Roman statues.  

We were getting closer.  But we weren't finished talking, so we sat another half hour or so and finally she said, "I like it."  I looked in the mirror.  Yea, it looked better than when I came in.  I'm less blonde and have more low lights.  We hugged, said I love you, and I headed back to mother's.  

Now that's a lot of talk about hair, isn't it?  Far too revelatory, too.  I mean who in the world gives a shit about my hair?  

Shall I confess?  There are plenty.  Not you, I know.  I can feel your disgust coming through the screen. You may have already cancelled your subscription.  Or you can call me a Narcissist and be using the term, for once, correctly.  I am only hoping to be able to stand to look at my own reflection in a pool of water in the pale moonlight.  Plus, and this is the big thing, I need to have some confidence when I approach people to take their picture.  I need to be able to look them in the eye and not feel deflated.  And therein lies the tale.  Street cred.  

On another day, I would delete all that and begin again.  

This isn't that day, I guess.  

It was time for the afternoon cocktail.  The tenant was on her way.  The afternoon was cloudy as the rain approached.  There was the breeze as the temperature fell.  I sat in the garage porch with my mother and felt. . . good.  I did.  I felt good. 

When the tenant pulled up, I asked her if she wanted a really good beer.  I poured her a Punks.  She lit up.  It is a very good beer.  And so we sat in the garage with mother and chatted and drank until the rain came.  When the wind shifted, we closed the garage door and went inside.  It was time for me to work.  

Not having a grill here, I decided to cook the hamburgers on the stove top in the enamelled cast iron pot.  Get it hot, pour in some olive oil.  Let that warm, and then hamburger patties, three minutes per side.  Chopped onions, sauerkraut, sweet relish, catsup, honey mustard--anything you want.  The burgers needed a minute more, then I plated them on brioche buns.  And good god, they were among the best burgers I've ever had.  

The tenant filled us in on her summer in the north helping her mother take care of her 107 year old grandmother.  More beer.  

"Who wants a hot dog?"

Everybody.  

"See Dick.  See Dick cook.  Dick cooks hot dogs."

Whatever.  Same thing.  Brioche buns, any toppings.  Whiskey.  I still felt good.  

When the meal was done and the tenant had gone, I cleaned up the kitchen.  Another Labor Day behind us.  What lies ahead?

Oh, hurricanes, of course.  Politics.  More warfare.  Renaming things.  Melting glaciers.  

or

Football season.  The World Series.  Wondering what that pop star will do now that she is married.  

Or, you could join me in watching this.  The old BBC.  How can it not be good?  

In the Moment

I'll give up the tech talk about photography.  That was all for me.  I doubt anyone else is interested.  It is like that part of "Moby Dick" where Melville writes about the classification of whales.  I always told students they could skip that part.  

I'll just show the pictures.  

I didn't take any yesterday, though.  I tried.  I got into the Xterra and drove a giant loop around town.  The good news is the Xterra is up and running fine again.  I really like that car.  But it is old and I can only hold my breath.  I realize that what I like is the large windows.  New cars have tiny windows.  I like to see things.  Car manufacturers like to save money.  That is all I can figure out is behind the move.   

So driving around town, I did see things.  But I never stopped the car.  I just didn't have it in me.   

And so I went back to my own house and opened the new book I've been so excited to get since Q told me about it.  He thought he might read it next.  I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up.  Oh, my!  The reviews were wildly good.  It was hailed a masterpiece in each and every one. It sounded like something right up my alley (link).  

I read for an hour and was deeply disappointed in Pessoa's "The Book of Disquiet."  The prose is purple, languid, and strained, I think.  It seems artifice rather than artifact.  Too many words for too little good.  

I doubt that I will ever finish it.  

Have you ever tried to read Thomas Wolfe?  Compare him with Faulkner.  For elegance in writing, give me Fitzgerald and Wharton and Woolf.  And, of course, for writing stripped to its bones, Hem.  

But don't trust me on this, for I have never been able to read Proust no matter how hard I have tried, and he is hailed by all as a great literary master.  

Pessoa makes me yearn for Bukowski's simple prose.  I feel Pessoa is trying to write where Bukowski merely tells.  

Call me a simpleton if you must.  It is probably true.  

I'll give it another go, though.  Perhaps I simply wasn't in the mood.  

I sent the review to my conservative buddy.  This was his reply:

"The chair I am sitting in faces the back of our property. Across the alley is the garage of a neighbor. There is a lamp above the door. I focused on it and then tried to recall and identify all the items at my side. The lamps on the mantle. What color and shape. The coffee machine in the kitchen, what is on the shelves around it. I only imagine I know what is around me.

The hummingbirds are still here. They will be headed your way in a few weeks then on to Central America."

That is far better than the book, I think. 

I received a random text yesterday from an unknown source. 

"Take thoU SAnds of photos or live in moment?"

What?  WTF is that about?  Someone who reads the blog or just coincidental?  

I felt like responding.  What does it mean to "live in the moment"?  It is a cliche, I think, used in pop psychology, probably widely by therapists.  As cliches often do, it may have come from a more impactful source once, but what does it mean other than to be present and paying attention to what is going on around you at a particular time without distraction?  And that is exactly what I am doing when I am making pictures.  The "or" part of that statement seems a non sequitur. 

The writer Peter Matthiessen did not like to take photographs on his travels, he said, because it distracted him, and I completely understand that.  Writing and photographing use different regions of the brain.  When I am making pictures, I am not collecting the information I need to write.  Observing in words is different than observing for graven images, and I can't do both at the same time.  

Jim Harrison said he had gotten to the point where he didn't know any longer if he was writing or if he was thinking.  I understand that, too.  

So, perhaps the author of that statement intended "observe for writing or make images."

Most likely, it was merely some whacky spam.  I'll never know.   

It is Labor Day, of course.  I have a busy day.  My beautician asked if I could come today instead of Thursday.  12:30.  So I will go to the gym, shower, and go get beautified before I come back to mother's to cook the hamburgers and hot dogs that I bought yesterday.   Brioche buns.  All sorts of condiments and sides.  I invited the tenant who will join us.  I bought two tall boy four packs of Punks in the Waiting Room, too.  $28.  But it has truly become my favorite beer, and it is only available at the brewery, so it is always a special treat.  

After Labor Day, we keep our weather eye out for hurricanes.  It is the most depressing time of year for me.  PTSD.  I am "triggered" by dark skies and wind.  

It is a good time to bury my nose in books rather than trying to "live in the present."

Oh, shit. . . I almost forgot about this!  No time to discuss it now.  Just watch it.  I'll quiz you on it tomorrow.  

Moxie

This is a photo from an article I sent to some of my friends about an exhibition at the Harvard Art Museum titled "The Way We Never Were" (link) questioning the narrative of life in postwar America which, the article claims, was built around commercial photography.  Man, I love the pictures.  You can see their influence on many of today's most highly considered art photographers.  

Of course, photographers like Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander and Diane Arbus and Garry Winogrand gave us a different vision, and I am mad for those, too.  

So, tongue in cheek, I sent the article with the following message:

"They are liars.  Those photos are EXACTLY how postwar America was.  Harvard is a bunch of fucking commies."

C.C. wrote back, “History is written by the whiners.”   

I thought that funny enough to send to Q with the message, "I wish I were half as clever as my friends," to which he replied, "We all wish that for you."

As C.C. put it, "It's a cold room."

I wish I could go to see the exhibition.  

I thought about going out to make my own shitty photographs yesterday, but I couldn't muster the chutzpah to do it.  The more I thought about it, the less appealing it was.  These pop-up "vintage" markets aren't really vintage at all.  There are booths full of old jeans and t-shirts, and though I love the crazy hipster kids who costume with delicious creativity, most of the crowd looks like the clothing hanging on the racks.  There are armies of people wearing t-shirts and jeans, an ocean of dull blues and beige.  

Why chance a hostile encounter for that?  So I did some internet chores for awhile, but by mid-afternoon I felt terribly guilty about wasting the opportunity, so I grabbed my cameras and headed out the door.  If I had enough moxie, I thought, I would use the Hasselblad on the crowd.  When I got near, though, I changed my mind.  I didn't have it in me.  And I was hungry.  I thought about going to the Asian market and getting some sort of snack.  At the last minute, though, I turned into the liquor store parking lot and parked.  I would just make a quick run through at the market.  I grabbed my cameras, got out of the car, and began to walk across the parking lot when I changed my mind.  It just felt wrong.  I didn't have it in me, so I got back in the car.  I decided, however, to drive by the market just to take a look.  I'm glad I did.  I didn't wish to photograph that lot today.  

When I got to the Asian market, I grabbed my Hasselblad. I had seven shots of color film left in it.  I wanted to shoot them up and take the film to the photo lab to get developed.  

The place was packed full of people.  I went to one of the booths and ordered some Sichuan fried chicken wings.  Then I got against the wall to wait for my order.  The interior was dark, but I took out my phone to meter the needed exposure.  I looked at the Hassie.  I could do it.  I looked around and put the camera to my eye.  The camera has a loud mirror slap when you take a picture, but the place was so busy, nobody noticed.  I held the camera by my side.  I wondered about shooting from the hip. With the Leica, you are still holding the camera in a shooting position even when it is not up to your eye, but the Hassie is a big box and there is no way you look like you are actually using it.  

Pow!

Rewind. 

Pow!

Hey, now, that was pretty good.  If the photos turn out ok, I have an idea for using the big old camera in the streets.  

The wings were good and messy.  I washed up before I headed out into the street.  I still had a few photos to take.  

Looking through the finder of that camera is nothing like looking through the viewfinder of a 35mm DSLR.  It is big and luscious, and so I stood at a street corner and finished off the roll.  Everything looked good, but it could have been an illusion.  I was excited to see.  

I drove to the photo lab.  It was busy.  Some tall old buffalo of a buffoon had boxes of old movie equipment spread out over the floor and was bloviating about it all to the kids who looked on, baffled.  I imagined he was giving it to them just to get rid of it.  They said they would have a look through it in the coming days.  I don't know why, but I found the fellow irritating.  

A girl was standing at the counter in front of me filling out the mandatory card for film development.  As I waited, the kid behind the counter said, "I was just talking about you yesterday."  Now what was that, I wondered?  "I was telling someone about your M7."  Huh.  Yea, that's the camera every hipster kid envies but can't afford.  I was like that for many years.  How can you justify spending that kind of money on a camera, let alone the lenses.  I tried all manner of alternatives for years until I decided fuck it.  As I read on a post today, "You can always justify buying another camera.  Some people do cocaine."  

That's pretty much it.  I drove old beaters and wore the same clothes for decades.  I could have the camera I wanted.  

But it's a slippery slope.  The justification keeps getting easier.   

If you have Instagram, here's a link that pretty much sums up shooting film (link).  

I am looking forward to being incredibly disappointed when the film comes back.  Truly.  But at the moment, I am happy.  I have hope.  I'm sure the images will be magnificent.  

I'm hoping for one good one, anyway.  

It was time to get back to mother's.  The day was wicked hot and the rains would be coming soon.  I bought a little pizza for dinner.  It was a early, but I made a cocktail and told my mother I needed to do some reading.  My life in her house is intellectually sterile, and I've decided I need to at least read for a few hours a day.  At least that. 

I tried. I made an hour.  I'm out of shape both physically and intellectually.   But I'm working on both.  Each.  

I want to play more with the Hasselblad today.  There are places to go.  

I hope I have the moxie. 

Let's have a little Sunday music to help us chill.