Stealing Souls

Fun with the new lens.  If I can get a portrait a day. . . .  This was the woman who tries to sell me expensive details at the carwash.  She calls me "sweetheart," and when she saw the camera, she said, "I knew you were an artist."  Of course, it should be obvious.  So I said, "Yes, here, let me take your photo," and put the viewfinder to my eye.  "I don't photograph so well," she said.  "But I do," I told her, "you won't believe it."  "It is hard to photograph the beauty of the soul," she told me as I focused.  "Oh, don't worry about that," I countered, "that is my specialty.  This is going to be just that."

Sitting with my camera waiting for my car to be detailed (yes, she talked me into way too much), I sat with my camera and saw a hundred portraits I should have tried to take.  But people scowl so much at the man with the camera.  The things that slip by unrecorded are the things that haunt me.  But I will look for faces I can steal. . . souls, I mean.

I went to the bookstore afterwards.  It is sad.  Bookstores are closing left and right, and the way they are run, they probably should.  First the big chains ran all the small stores out of business because they provided what people wanted--a place to sit and drink coffee and browse over books.  It was the closest anyone in Omaha or Decatur got to the images they saw in movies set in San Francisco or New York.  They were imitations, but they were closer than what they had before.  In my own town, there was a little bookstore run by a demon of a woman who made you uncomfortable every time you came in with her perpetual pissed-off ideological scowl.  There was no relaxed lounging there.  So when she had to close, I figured she got what she deserved.  But I knew the chains were lousy capitalist pig-fuckers who would ruin what they touched. Soon, there were three bookstores in town.  One was that Sam's Club of bookstores (it is a blasphemy to call them that), Books a Million.  The other two were Borders and Barnes and Noble.  Both stores here were like the Bloomingdales that is in town, a faux-version, cheap and meretricious.  Over time, they carried more calendars and cookbooks than literature.  They are going under now.  I went to one yesterday and left without anything.  Books are in trouble, but we'll see what the market brings.  In my own idiot town, I'm not sure there are enough serious readers to warrant a bookstore of merit.  I guess I'll buy an iPad or a Kindle.

Afterwards, I went to the grocery store and bought supplies.  As I was checking out, the chatty cashier asked me where the beer was from.  I had Ichiban.  "Japan," I said.  I hadn't even thought about it.  Jesus Christ, I guess I won't be buying that anymore.

Life is being reduced to some ravaging minimums.  Things are being lost and stolen at a steady pace.  But there are always new things to take their places.  Twitter.  Facebook.  Live television on your iPhone.  It is simply a matter of adjustment, I guess.