Armchairs That We've Known

This photo was taken in Paris before an area known as Les Entrepots de Bercy had been transformed into office buildings and upscale apartments. The Bercy Warehouses was acres and acres of ancient wine warehouses along the Seine that had lain abandoned for years. I was lucky to slip under a fence one day and roam around in there, because not long after that day, the entire place was bull-dozed... a criminal act if there ever was one. More pictures will follow from the Bercy Warehouses... if I'd only known then what I know now, I'd have taken hundreds more photos than I did. This one always seemed like a stage scene to me, just waiting for the actors to come in from the wings...

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Armchair
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It was sitting there
Next to the dumpster
In the rain
Drooping
Looking far less like an armchair
An old tired down on its luck armchair
A Bowery Row beatnick beat up armchair
An armchair that had obviously endured
At least fifteen years
Of sweat and farts and pretzel crumbs
Spilled beer and ketchup stains
All of that and more undoubtedly
Without a complaint
Yet for all of that
Those fifteen arduous years
Those fifteen faithful years
There it was
Sitting
Next to the dumpster
In the rain
Looking far less
Like an armchair
Than it looked
Like an old and tired dog
Told unceremoniously
To leave
To go away
To get out
After all those years
And it went down the street
With head down
And tail between legs

The pain was crushing
Like the soggy plaid upholstery

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Transformed

The magic window posted below was transformed quite some time ago for other purposes, long forgotten, but just another case of : there is always more than one way to look at anything, as in Both Sides Now, or both sides then...

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Lebanon Landscape

As mentioned below, some parts of Lebanon are dumping grounds, they seem to have far more than their fair share of disemboweled wrecks littering the landscape. The road north through the Bekaa Valley to Baalbek seems to be one long stretch of junkyard... For me, that is photography paradise, I was frustrated to be travelling with a group and could not stop at my leisure... will just have to go back.

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Damascus DeSoto

In the heart of Damascus, near the Mosque of the Umayyads, in a back street, this deep blue DeSoto was drinking up the Syrian sunlight. A work of art, a little the worse for wear, but evidently still going strong over 50 years from its birth in some dank and long closed factory in America. I can see it rolling grand and free along winding country roads, sailing across smooth seas, taking to the air, navigating among the clouds, and why not onward and upward to the stars...

DeSoto Detail

Hernando de Soto travelled widely, but ended badly, dying of a fever along the Mississippi River in the 1500's. The car named for him fared similarly. I had never seen a DeSoto automobile that was still in running condition at close range until stumbling on one in a back street of Damascus, Syria in April,2007. For years I've had a chrome DeSoto hubcap on my wall, which I found on an abandoned car lying on its roof in the woods near Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. That hubcap will no doubt make its way into this blog sooner or later. A noble hood ornament if there ever was one... but another example of man's endeavors coming to naught.

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Bekaa Through Barbed Wire

The Bekaa Valley is a fertile plain between the Mountains of Lebanon that rise up almost out of the sea, and the mountains inland along the Syrian border. Excellent wine country, the Romans left many temples and ruins throughout this region. Today fields are bordered with barbed wire.

Car Cadavers

The lovely country of Lebanon occupies a piece of the Earth coveted over the centuries by many forces. Sadly many external and internal forces have too often caused unbearable pressures that have driven people to and beyond the breaking point. Consequently the country bears the scars of many conflicts, which continue to this day. This may explain why parts of Lebanon are poorly cared for, with dumping grounds and abandoned cars appearing to mar or decorate the landscape, depending on your point of view. This desolate green car was in the hills above Beirut, propped up on stilts for unfathomable reasons. Humans often leave unfathomable traces. May the diverse peoples of Lebanon one day find the lasting peace they so richly deserve.

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Point of View

I could never decide whether I liked this image better upside down or right-side up, it doesn't really matter. If I'd been hanging upside down from a tree branch, this is the scene you would have seen. The fact that light bounces off water with startling clarity never ceases to amaze me. Photo was taken along a quiet stretch of Nacote Creek, near Port Republic, New Jersey. A backwater town if there ever was one.

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Wildflowers and Weeds

To the north of Paris, not far from CDG Airport there are stretches of fields bordered by wildflowers, I am particularly partial to the time of summer when the wild poppies are blooming, that Monet celebrated so thoroughly with his "Coquelicots". Farther off in the field, and stretching away into the distance, another form of weed grows, insidious, omni-present, difficult to eradicate.

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Appalachian Wasteland

A new book found its way into my library last week: "Appalachian Wilderness: The Great Smoky Mountains", a collaboration by Eliot Porter who did the photographs, and Edward Abbey who wrote the text. I only learned about the existence of this work recently; surprising given that I have loved both Edward Abbey and Eliot Porter separately for years, and have other books by both of them. "Appalachian Wilderness" is a hard book, describing the beauty of the Smoky Mountains (well illustrated with Porter's lovely photographs) against a backdrop of tragedy, the tragic removal of the Cherokee Indians, and the continuing crimes against the Earth committed by the ravenous American culture that followed. What remains is a destitute legacy of ignorance and greed, visible in many places throughout the region. I made my own pilgrimage to the Smoky Mountains in 1992, and wrote this piece somewhere in Tennessee. There remain, fortunately, some small remnants of the wilderness that the Cherokees roamed, the true owners of the land. They took far better care of it than the culture that decimated them ever will. But the wheel turns, and what goes around, comes around. As for Cowboys, the Motel, I can still remember the stink of the cockroach insecticide...
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....... Cowboys
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It was one of those redneck restaurants
With sawdust on the floor
Full of fat folks
Stuffing hushpuppies in their cheeks
Like squirrels in the Spring
Who dig up buried treasure
Bowls of peanuts on every table
Fat folks tossing peanut shells
On the sawdust covered floor
Not a one noticing the lake
The large and silent man-made lake
What former valley sleeps below
The oily water
Fouled by the spew
Of ten thousand motor boats
Full of beer-swilling
Cigarette-butt-tossing
Redneck country bumpkins
Welcome to the center of America
The wasteland

And just down the lakeshore
From Cowboys, the restaurant
Is Cowboys, the motel
A wonderfully luxurious hotel
Style mid-America late twentieth century
The most be-a-oot-i-full room imaginable
Nothing but the best for my love and I
Orange closet doors mock the sunrise
Oak paneling, fake
Brick wall, fake
Lime green metal armchairs
Fragonards on the wall
A humongous air conditioner
The obligatory TV
Big metal outdoor style trashcan
In the corner
Combo fridge-oven-sink
And the crowning touch
The Leaning Toilet of Tennessee
The Pope knows it will fall one day
But meanwhile parks his buttocks
Once again
Trying to lose the load
Of flounder and cowboy taters
That he took on last night
And all night long
The chainsaw ran
Down by the lakeshore
Slaughtering peasants
By moonlight

Light Matters

Details of some of the window panes from the building in Philadelphia across the street from City Hall, and their halftone derivatives, further illustrate the fascinating forms that light and dark can assume when under the influence of total hazard. Again, what is light, after all? Waves? Particles? Magic?

Distorted Reflections

This is another photo along the same lines, or curves as it were, as in the Magic Window below... light running rampant over slightly less than smooth surfaces. The reflection here is City Hall in downtown Philadelphia, which we used to affectionately refer to as "Filthadelphia", home of the "Surekill Expressway". The distortions in each section of window are varied and marvellous. From a certain angle the statue of William Penn on top of City Hall appears to display anatomical details of Mr Penn not necessarily intended by the sculptor, Alexander Calder. I learned from a website that :

"Calder's most famous City Hall sculpture is the 37ft.-27 ton bronze statue of William Penn. The largest statue to adorn any building in the world, it was cast at Tacony Iron and Metal Works in 14 sections. Beginning as a 9 ft. clay model, it is the result of 20 years of work by the sculptor. To his chagrin, it was mounted on the tower facing northeast, where Penn negotiated a treaty with the Indians instead of South where it would be constantly lit by the sun.

Coming Unglued

2008 : Oil prices going through the roof, then through the basement, now the international markets on a roller-coaster ride, wars, corruption, famine, plagues, hurricanes, bark beetles, forest fires, gangs, drugs, dirty elections; one could well imagine that the four riders of the apocalypse have been loosed upon the world, the world as we knew it may be disappearing... the human race appears to be coming unglued...
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Coming Unglued
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Some bastard at work
Had poured awfully sticky glue
All over the keyboard
Of my computer
The stuff of tarpits
But transparent
Odorless

When I sat down to type
Yet another nasty e-mail
My fingers stuck to the keys
I tried to pull my hands away
The keyboard rose in the air
Suspended on my fingertips

I banged it back down
A few loose keys flew off
I smashed it against
The idiot screen
That I spend half my life
Staring at

Then I found
That the rotten
Son of a whore
Had poured glue
On my chair too
I tried to stand
My ass and back were stuck
The glue had soaked
Through my pants
And underpants
To the hair
And skin of my balls

“Son of a bitch !” I screamed
“I’ve had enough of this SHIT !”
I ripped the keyboard out
With its cable
Broke it in half
On the edge of the desk
And ran as best I could
With that damn chair
Stuck to my back
Half a keyboard
On each hand
Yelling epithets
Randomly at cubicles
And their wide-eyed occupants
A horrible grimace
Distorting my face
As that cheap office chair
Tugged hard on my testicles
With every lunging step

Out through the front lobby
And the marvellous revolving doors
I ran, lurching
I ran from workplace hell
Brandishing the broken keyboard
At the uncaring heavens above
Snarling at pedestrians
Who stopped to stare
At one of their kind
Who had come
Unglued

The Magic Window

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You may well question my taste in photographs, but this is one of my favorite among favorites. Among the many thousands of photos taken over the years, this one never fails to please me... but then again, I'm easily pleased. For as long as I can remember I've been fascinated with light in general, and reflections in particular, and this one just goes off the scale. Photo was taken in 1987 at a place called the Lieper House, which dates from about 1785, near Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. From the texture of the ancient stone wall, quarried across the creek from the house, to the wild play of light in the window panes reflecting nearby tree branches, this photo just turns me on... lovely liquid light lingering... poetry in motion !

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Holy Boars, Batman !

The other afternoon while out walking with my wife very close to where we live, we came across a bunch of wild boars who were busy scarfing up apples that had fallen from a tree. There were three large adults followed by a bevy of baby boars. We were quite surprised to find them out so early in the day and so boldly out roaming around in public. Usually they shy away from people, and often do most of their scavenging at night. Needless to say, they gave us a good scare, boars can be aggressively dangerous, especially if they are worried about their offspring... I didn't need any Phillips Milk of Magnesia after one of them grunted loudly at us from the underbrush after I started taking pictures of them...

Milk of Amnesia

Many years ago some kind and good soul named Phillips (perhaps the second or third most common name in England and the United States behind only Smith or Jones) invented a medicinal remedy for constipation and named it Phillips Milk of Magnesia. It became a popular product as apparently it had a reasonably high rate of effectiveness. I always thought there should have been a second product, to be called Phillips Milk of Amnesia... to be taken when ever anything really needed to be forgotten quickly. One would flush out the bowels, the other would flush out the brain ! If some neuro-anatomist researcher some day discovers a medicine that can help people forget really painful experiences, and get a patent on it, that could be worth a fortune. Like Albert Barnes and his Argyrol, the inventor could go out and start buying up large quantities of art... or whatever else might take a person's fancy...

Life Is Short

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Related to the stories of "The One That Got Away", I suppose, is the story of "The Life That Got Away". If things had only been different, what one could have done... Well, life's a bitch, and then one day you end up hanging on hook in the window of a Paris Medical School supply store. So enjoy it while you can, because life is short !

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When I was little we would go into my father's laboratory at the medical school where he was a professor of anatomy, there were skeletons like this one hanging around. Could that contribute to explaining the odd attraction I've had over the years to visit cemeteries, or places like the Paris Catacombs, or for the music of the Grateful Dead? Freud would no doubt have something to say about all that.

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The One That Got Away

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It is well known that some of the greatest fishing stories, or stories about other activities for that matter, are about "The One That Got Away". How wonderful it is to imagine and exaggerate and illustrate in glowing colors the one that got away. Photographs are no exception. How many times have I known with utter certainty that I missed an incredible photographic opportunity by a few seconds of indecision, or an act of fate that placed me at slightly the wrong place at the wrong time, or a moment of fumbling with the focus or the other camera settings, and a marvellous photo escaped me. The other day driving to work there was an old orange VW Beetle parked near the end of a runway by the airport, while jets were taking off just over it and disappearing into the low hazy clouds. I'm sure there was a fabulous photo there waiting to be caught, but I couldn't stop at that point along the road, and too far to walk back, would have had to backtrack quite a ways, so for any number of reasons, I missed that chance... the one that got away.

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This photograph is an example of another version of the one that got away... much to my chagrin I never knew who the owner of these lovely legs was. So close yet so far, I could only ever after wonder what I had missed by not going around that tree and finding any lame excuse to start a conversation. I remember she was sitting leaning back on a bench, soaking up some late afternoon sun... the one that got away, leaving me with just a glimpse of leg to dwell on.

Another Dreamer

I know it is not kind to take pictures of people when they are asleep and particularly defenseless, but now and again I can't resist. Once my wife almost murdered me for taking a picture of her asleep in a car with her mouth open. Many homicides happen between married people, it's true. This gentleman in London was also a little the worse for wear for drink... out snoring away on his doorstep, I suppose you could say he was stooped over on his stoop. I couldn't let the opportunity go by... that pants leg that had slipped up, revealing his ankle and the low-heeled slipper turned to show advantageously, the suspenders pulling the waist of his trousers up over a bulging belly... I know, you're thinking I'm not very charitable... well, I guess you're right, sometimes the human race needs to be shown in all its glory. The worst part is... he woke up when the shutter clicked, saw what I was up to, and made some slurred and sloppy gurgling noises in my general direction before his chin plummeted back down onto his chest... just another dreamer

Dreaming of Eternity

Earlier in this convoluted document I pasted in a photo with the caption "Super Real", which was taken at the entrance to the cemetery in Jacmel, Haiti, in February 1997. Walking around that cemetery, which is another bad habit I have, and incidentally, it was one of the loveliest cemeteries I've ever seen anywhere, I stumbled on this gentleman who was sleeping off a serious case of early afternoon heavy drinking, stretched out on the hard top of a tomb... he smelled like some of the rum distilleries they have down there, I didn't dare approach too closely for fear a low spark from a high heel might set off an explosion. Neither before or after have I ever come across anyone else sleeping on a tombstone, and could only imagine he was dreaming of Eternity... as with some earlier subjects below, I had to photograph him from both sides...

Escher Designed Hats !

The hat this gentleman was wearing grabbed me the instant I saw it, well, not litterally, but it was a vision straight out of an MC Escher etching, one of his incredible interweaving images of black and white swans merging into each other comes to mind. And his scowl... priceless ! Maybe I should try photo-shopping it a little, cutting and pasting the scowl part upside down to turn it into... a smile. Can you imagine him with a smile? I'd be smiling if I had a hat like that... am going to go have to go back to Philadelphia some time and comb through thrift shops until I find it, or one like it. If you have one already, and don't wear it any more, please post it, I'm not sure I can live much longer without one... the pattern almost looks like black and white leaping toads ! A treasure...
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And it also brings to mind Bob Dylan's timeless song :
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"Yes, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, you must tell me, baby
How your head feels under somethin' like that"
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And it might be fun at some point to do an Andy Warhol take-off with this, doing a three-by-three grid of this image repeated nine times, each one a different color... can you see it???

Jerry Transfigured

Shortly after taking the photograph of Jerry posted below I transformed it to pure black and white using an obsolete photgraphic process, (we didn't have PCs with Photoshop back then !) and then blew it up to poster size and had a thousand copies printed... which I proceeded to sell for a nominal fee outside concert venues. They sold fast, and look great mounted on backing board, matted, and framed. If anyone is interested I still have about a hundred or so of them, which can be purchased as a signed/numbered print, as long as they last. The copper plates used to print the poster size were destroyed by the printer, so... from that cup no more. In the pure black and white version the cymbal behind Jerry could almost be a halo...

All Things Must Come to Pass

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Owl Dead
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The police chief
Was killed in a car wreck
Last summer
Now the house next door
Stands empty
Black windows
In white walls
Gape like sockets
In a skull
Awkward like toilets
In public stalls
The wife and children
Moved away
Sometimes best to run from pain
They left untended
The small garden below
My window on the third floor
Now dry tomato vines
Still tied to sturdy stakes
Brave the winter wind
Remnants of eggplants
Litter the weed filled bed
And once tied
To the telephone pole nearby
Was a plastic owl
A scarecrow of sorts
Put there to worry pigeons
And other vagabond varmint souls
But the owl now lies
On its back
In the untidy garden bed
The owl is dead

Jerry R.I.P. !

After sharing images of Crosby & Stills (see below) it would
be criminal for me not to post this shot of Jerry Garcia taken during a Dead show at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena on 2 April, 1989, during "Dear Mr Fantasy", using high speed film and no flash. We used to say that Jerry was really ripping on such or such a night... now we just say, Jerry may you R.I.P
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I was fortunate to have seen them play in places far and wide; from Oxford Plains, Maine, to Compton Terrace, Arizona, from Paris, France in the Zenith Theatre, to Las Vegas, Nevada in the UNLV Silver Bowl with Carlos Santana, in Deer Creek, Indiana, and countless shows on the East Coast at the Philadelphia Convention Center & the Spectrum, in Pittsburgh at the Civic Arena and Three Rivers Stadium (with Crosby, Stills, & Nash, at JFK Stadium in Washington, and the Capitol Center in Landover, Maryland, even in Madison Square Garden, NYC, as well as Giants Stadium in North Jersey.... Never a dull moment... and from that cup no more...

Sad Shack Re-Visited

As with my dream car from Paris below, the dream car from Kentucky, a Ford Falcon, in front of the sad shack illustrated earlier here was also photographed from both sides now, front and back, in white and black, with illusions of reflections sailing across the windshield and rear window. I wonder if it is still there today, settled a little deeper in the grass, disappearing under vines? Here today, gone tomorrow...

Still Crosby !

Two weeks ago Stephen Stills played in Paris, and I was able to photgraph him from the edge of the stage (see below in blog). 25 years ago David Crosby played in a small tavern near Wilmington, Delaware, and there also I was able to photograph him from the edge of the stage. And a pox on the person who stole my negatives of the series of photos that this image comes from. Fortunately I'd made prints before I loaned the negatives and they never came back. David Crosby is a truly inspired artist, his voice rang out with incredible power, I can hear it still 25 years later. And he is on tour with Graham Nash at present... still belting them out... if you get a chance to see them, don't miss it, they're still great together !

Puppy Print

As mentioned below in this blog, it was this image of a puppy carrying a pheasant feather which was such a natural link to the photo of a kitten with feathers taken in Le Mans, France shown below. The original of this puppy print is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, attributed to a Korean artist in the 16th century. So, did they both dine on the proprietors of the feathers?

Both Sides Then

A few posts back, I shared my dream car with you, saying that that is about as good as it gets... well, like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime, the muse has compelled me to share two other views of that wondrous work of "found art" from Paris...

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Way back eons ago near the beginning of this blog, I copied the lyrics in from Joni Mitchell's beautiful song "Both Sides Now", it is critically important to look at things in life from all possible angles... you may miss something fabulous if you don't.

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I've looked at wrecks from both sides then

From front and rear, from far and near

It's wrecks illusions I recall

I really don't know wrecks, at all...

Every Dog's Dream

Anyone who knows me and where I grew up may recognize our old Elementary School in the background here, but when I came back years later to re-visit some old haunts, it was this boldly painted silver fire hydrant that I felt an uncontrollable urge to... photograph. And anyone who knows me also knows how much I love to photograph dogs... there will be more dog pictures coming soon to this blog, Cooky and the Cow was just a warm up, an hors d'oeuvre if you will... but this image, to anyone who appreciates canine intellectual activity, is every dog's dream ! Have you ever watched your favorite pooch snoozing away when his back legs started twitching vigorously? You thought he was dreaming of chasing rabbits? Forget it, he was dreaming of this heavenly fire hydrant !

Found Art !

One other piece of "found art" played a pivotal role in my life some twenty years ago, in that it caused me to stop, look twice, and then go through the door it was hanging on to see what demented soul could have nailed a two dimensional flattened tricycle to their front door ! Of all the absurd and wonderful things I've had the good fortune to stumble on as I make my way through the thick fog enshrouding our planet, our paradise, our prison, this one is high, high on the list. And thanks to a tricycle from desolation row, I met some of the most incredible people imaginable... our paths have been entwined since that day. Thank you Mr. Wreck* (see Nuclear Cows earlier in this blog) for having had the inspirational vision to nail a decrepit tricycle to your door, many people would never have dared. You are an inspiration to us all... to dare to defy convention... and let it all hang out... after midnight ! Under a full moon ! In the moonlight midnight !

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Although the image doesn't do it justice, this object is a certifiable masterpiece from the studio of that most patient and talented of artists : Father Time. What is it, you ask? A glimpse of the full moon through a drunken kaleidoscope? An anatomical magnification of brain tissue infected with Mad Cow Disease? Would you believe me if I told you it was a magical mirror?

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I found this mirror in my grandparents' garage where it had been forgotten decades earlier. Time and variations in temperature from summer heat to winter frost had done the rest. This is a veritable work of "found art", rare would be the human who could have conceived and executed such a creation, peeling away the mercury tinted backing from the glass, leaving such an intricate and wondrous design etched in black... who would have believed it possible? The stuff of hallucination. The stuff of magic lantern shows...

Going Nose to Nose

After all those black and white photos, a little bit of color is due, and some lighter subject matter to boot.

While strolling on the Island of Brehat this past summer, I observed an interesting exchange of ideas taking place between a dog named Cooky and an un-named cow. I'm sure they had plenty of important matters to discuss...

Glimpse of Heaven

This is another of my dream properties, through the wide open door, the gaping window... a glimpse of heaven! What I would give to be able to go back to this place and do an archeological dig, dragging everything out into the street, into the light of day... the pots & pans & baby carriage wheels, the other assorted junk from a lifetime or more ! I love mysteries like this... what happened here? Who lived here, who let this happen??? The key is still in the keyhole, for crying out loud. And the luscious texture... When I die, don't worry about buying a coffin and paying for a burial, just toss my lifeless carcass right in here, and I'll be in heaven...
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This photograph, for the record, was taken in St Malo, France, in August 1986, and this property was bulldozed into oblivion shortly thereafter. Not far from St Malo can be found the village of Lancieux. Lying in Lancieux for all eternity are the mortal remains of the immortal poet Robert William Service. May his soul rest peacefully, after his arduous life in the Yukon and on the battlefields of World War One in France where he worked as an ambulance driver. His poems shine with the light of magical inspiration.

Dream Car

A little further down this blog was my dream shack... well, this is my dream car. It was on showroom display right in downtown Paris, occupying a strategic sexy spot on the left bank of the Seine just a stone's throw from Notre Dame, the center of the known universe. Now ain't she a beauty? Sunning herself on a sunny afternoon. Stunning! I would have loved to give here a test drive!

She'd been dredged out of the river, god only knows how long she'd been at the bottom getting caked in mud, or what tragedy led her there in the first place. If there had been any human remains, they had long since been washed away. I love texture in photographs, and this one is full of it. What more could one want out of life?!? Abandoned cars ! Paris ! It doesn't get much better than that !

Still Life With Kitten & Feathers

In my parents house there was a print of a puppy carrying a feather in his mouth, which my father had brought home from a museum excursion. This cat with feathers reminds me no end of that dog print. This picture was taken in the shadow of the Cathedral in Le Mans, France a few years ago. Meditation is an option when gazing as this kitten is gazing. I like the heart shape between her front legs... the heart of darkness... I wonder where the owner of the feathers is?

Shacked Up

This is my dream house... if I had to finish my life alone somewhere deep in the Maine woods, this would be the place for me... it just needs a little fixing up, sweeping out, maybe some flowers in a vase in the window. Wow, like the sad shack mentioned earlier in this blog down in Kentucky, you have to wonder who lived here. Maybe a descendant of Thoreau? This photo sets me to dreaming...

De-Construction

Although I'm not usually too interested in purely abstract art, occasionally an image may grab me... This is our neighbor's house, taken through a thick window pane, almost kaleidoscopic. Odd things going on with the light here; well light is pretty odd stuff when you stop to think about it. Is it particles, is it waves...? For me it's just magic.

Touching Earth

And one more in the growing series of photos from London, a vibrant city in many respects. This gentleman had been sitting on a park bench, a little the worse for wear from drinking his lunch, trying to roll a cigarette, when a gust of wind scattered his tobacco and blew the rolling paper down the path. He stumbled after it, and finally succeeded in pinning it to the ground, while balancing bent over, trying not to tip over. This scene lasted long enough for me to take a picture, as he hesitated and wobbled. Maybe he was just soaking up Earth energy through his fingertips, something akin to God reaching out to Man on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel ?

Ballad For a Thin Man

And while on the subject of photos taken in London, this self portrait as the Thin Man (another Dylan song I always loved) was taken near Marble Arch, skinny legs and all... which just happens to be the title of a book by one of my favorite authors... Tom Robbins. So, guess I'll go grab a book off the shelf and crank up the stereo, and get all these references rolling. "There's something happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

Just Another Day In Paradise

This photo doesn't need much comment, other than that I took it in Northeast London a few years back, in the vicinty of Wood Green, which is on the Piccadilly Line after Turnpike Lane. Identical brick houses like these that go on as far as the eye can see, and then some. Would love to go back in time and take photos like this again with the camera I use today... sigh...

Rudi : In Memoriam

Rudi Stern was a great man. A truly great human being. He was among the most generous and intelligent humans I've ever encountered. From the time I met him in Haiti, where he was living in a house in Petionville, above Port au Prince, that he rented from the sister of Antoine Izmery, who had been assassinated outside a church, Rudi never ceased to demonstrate his kindness and thoughtfulness. Rudi was in Haiti working on films he had been shooting for Crowing Rooster Arts, about the political situation in that sad and desolate country. He had trained as a painter, and still was painting in Haiti, in Jersey City, and in Italy, the last time I saw him alive. But he had gone from painting to doing light shows for people like Igor Stravinsky or the Doors, while hanging out with Timothy Leary's crowd in the 1960's. He went on to producing works of art in Neon, founding a company called "Let There Be Neon", and he authored a book with the same name. Type Rudi Stern on Google, and numerous references can be found, including obituaries which ran in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among others. I shot this portrait in Haiti on the terrace where we played chess several times during the two weeks I was there. Rudi passed away in 2006, a victim of lung cancer. I will never forget how he related the morning of September 11th, 2001. He was out walking his dog, as he loved to do, along the river in Jersey City, just across from the World Trade Center. The events of that morning were clearly visible from his vantage point across the river. He was profoundly afflicted by having witnessed people jumping from the tops of the stricken towers. He was an excellent chess player. More info can be found at :

http://www.lettherebeneon.com/rudi_stern_memorial/index.php

Sad Shack

While living down in Kentucky a few years back, I spent alot of time on weekends out roaming around sometimes quite far afield, just poking about here and there on back roads, in the back woods, and believe you me, Kentucky has some serious back woods. More than once I had a shotgun or a rifle pointed in my general direction, folks down there don't always care for strangers with cameras. This may be one of the most forlorn photographs I ever made. I make no claim to being a good or great photographer, am average at best, but every once in a while a mood that I'm trying to catch almost comes through in the finished image. This place, the one-room shack, the ancient automobile rusting away, the empty mailbox; whole novels could be written around this image, thousands of words anyway, words like heartbreak, loss, abandon, desolation, and you can complete the list... Who lived here and drove this car to the nearby coal mines? Is his skeleton still lying on the disintegrating bed in the shack, with sheaves of moldy paper stacked in a corner, paper on which he had carefully typed out a lifetime's worth of poems?

The Invisible Man

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This picture was taken in Philadelphia one night not too long ago (you can tell it's Philly by the shape of the street signs). When I took it I was pretty sure it was going to be a wasted shot, given it was at night, no flash, just the street light and the vapor rising from manhole covers, but after printing the first contact sheet, I could see there was more texture in the negative than I would have guessed, so I played around making some larger prints... and found an image that finally ended up pleasing me considerably... well, I'm sorry, I'm easy to please. I have no idea who this person was, but for me, he will always be the Invisible Man, captured one winter night in Center City after a Mummer's Day parade. This is another case of from out of the shadow, we will return into the shadow.
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Some Shadows
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Some shadows dance alone
They dance when you are gone
They dance when no one’s looking
They dance until the dawn
Some shadows are just lonely
Some of them are sad
Some shadows can be seen through
Others are too black
Some shadows dance in mourning
Some shadows dance for joy
Some dance in celebration
Some dance to destroy
Some dance for pure elation
Some shadows turn to stone
Some shadows mend your aching heart
Some shadows dance alone
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Maybe the invisible person in the photo was Napoleon, as in :
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"You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?"
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(Thanks Mr B. Dylan for all the great songs)
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Kittens in Wonderland

You may look at this picture and think, gosh, what god-awful transformation did he do to this... but in actual fact, this is exactly how the image came out of the first digital camera I ever tried using. It was a piece of junk, a free gift with another purchase, so I wasn't expecting much. The battery had run down, and after this shot it shut down completely. But I liked the shadowy kittens, and the psychedelic texture. The kitten shadow figures reminded me of the image of a man negatived on a wall in Hiroshima by a bright flash of light one August morning a few years back... the things we do to each other. Anyway, sometimes without trying, surprising images appear out of the ether, unbidden. From the shadow, we will return into the shadow. In the meanwhile, don't miss out on playing with kittens ! They love to play all day !

Into the Shadow

This photo was taken by Edward Curtis, may his soul rest peacefully, far from any fence. The caption he left with this photo was "Into the Shadow". How better to summarize the disappearance of a beautiful way of life ? Life where wind, water, mountains, earth, plants, and wildlife were worshipped with profound reverence. We need to return to more ancient ways of looking at our life and the only Earth we have to live it on. It pains me deeply to see our so-called civilisation treating the Earth as though it were a disposable diaper. Look at what happened to Glen Canyon if you want a concrete example... Glen Canyon disappeared... into the shadow...

Feeling Fenced In ?

This blog is nothing more than a metaphorical walk through life on an afternoon we dreamed of while taking a nap one day. Sometimes while out walking with my camera, something odd like the play of light through a slatted fence onto the sidewalk late in the day in Oakland, California near the Port on the San Francisco Bay will catch my eye, and I'll snap a picture without hardly even thinking about it. But for some unfathomable reason, this image grabbed my imagination when I saw it later. There are densely packed lines going every which way in it, like some of those abstract artworks from back in the 60's with tightly spaced black and white lines, creating the illusion of motion, visually difficult to get a handle on it, like something in a dreamscape.

Is anyone feeling fenced in by life these days ? Wondering if our collective economy is going to survive ? Wondering when the next hurricane is heading your way ? Wondering whether you'll be able to continue to pay the bills and put gas in your car ? Wondering whether life can continue as we know it today ? Are you comfortable in your cocoon, whatever size or shape or type of silk it was spun from ? Beware, cocoons can get shredded. Look what happened to the Native Americans, not long after Europeans appeared on the shores of America.

Edward Curtis took a good look while he still could, and left us 40,000 photographs to ponder of Native Americans and their way of life. If you are feeling fenced in, maybe it is time to start thinking about tearing down some fences and looking to open spaces like the space American Indians lived in... wide open. Take a look at some of the photos Edward Curtis made, you can find them on a multitude of websites. Their message is sobering. If we don't stop doing violence to one another and to the Earth we inhabit, we may follow soon in the hard footsteps of the Native Americans who embarked on a Trail of Tears one winter not so long ago. They did not deserve what fate handed them. I'm not sure I can say the same about our own culture... we have fenced ourselves in... the Native Americans built no fences between them and the Earth...

I've looked at fences from both sides now
From East and West and still somehow
It's fence illusions I recall
I really don't want fences, at all...

(to echo Joni as quoted earlier in this blog)

Still Life With Stills

Went to see Stephen Stills play in the Olympia Theatre in Paris this evening, he was excellent ! At 63 he continues to belt out his blues with rambunctious energy and that trademark voice has not diminished with time. From "Helplessly Hoping" through "Love the One You're With" he rocked ! If he ever comes through near where you are, don't miss him...
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This photo is a halftone conversion of a shot I took tonight, I always liked pushing out the shades of gray, one way or the other, to black or to white... you know, like what Mother Nature did to zebras...