Restoration Drama
Give me dreams, but let me sleep,
In peaceful rest to lie—
Haul off the tossing, counting sheep,
The nightmares passing by—
Yes, make the most of forty winks,
A hundred, if I may;
Remove insomnia and keep
Harsh wakefulness at bay—
No more foul nights as hostage to
Psychosis’ nasty knife—
Now, make a truce and make it true,
Right through eternal life!
When I sort and edit photos, it helps if I can create categories and subcategories that will help me to find and use them after the fact. If an event or occasion is short and simple in the relative sense of such things, the name of the event or occasion itself may suffice as filing ID, but what of things like our summer road trip that encompass 5 weeks, 6000 miles, a dozen states, 2 countries, 3 music conferences, a dozen members of the immediate family, a half-dozen motels and hotels, and ever so much more?
What I tend to do is create an all-encompassing title that all photos will bear, identifying them as part of the larger expedition, and then putting them into files and sub-files that clarify the who-what-when-where-why-&-how of them. This helps me have at least a slight hope of locating any single shot or group of shots from among the multitude that remains even after I’ve culled a multitude more. It also reminds me of what things became, either because of my continuing interest in them or by natural default of recurrence on the way, thematic in the event.
Not surprising, then, that this extended road trip would have obvious and substantial files of many very familiar subjects. To be sure, there are a quantity of such old favorites of mine that any moderately frequent or attentive visitor to this blog could easily guess. Given my blog header, I can start with my fondness for rusty, rustic old things (like me, naturally), mechanical bits and industrial loveliness. There are hints in that image, as well, of my magpie adoration of all things shiny-metal, glass, water, jewels, plastic and any other thing that glints to catch my avid eye.
My many obsessions also appear in nature: flora, fauna, sea, sky and stone. If there’s a noticeable cloud formation or special kind of light I am lured to admiration of it. Insects draw me like, well, the proverbial flame-drawn moth. I’m an ignorant admirer of all sorts of vehicles that strike me as different or novel when it comes to my everyday experience, so there are always photos in my stash of cars and trucks, boats and trains, heavy equipment and the slightest, lightest personal transport other than feet. Feet, for that matter, can make perfectly entertaining objects of my camera’s affections, since people in general are also on my list, and character-full feet or quirkily clad ones or ones that by position tell a story ought to make marvelous image sources any time.
In the case of human subjects, I do have something of a restrictive love, however. When I know the subjects of my documentation, I’d usually rather be interacting with them, so often, the camera sits idle and forgotten unless I have some sort of mandate to shoot. If I don’t know the people, I am bound by respect for their privacy almost as much as by my shyness not to photograph them at all. So aside from crowd shots and unidentifiably altered distant views, I’m not likely to include too many people in my panoply of for-art photographs.
Where people congregate or what people have left behind, that’s all fodder for my imagination, though. I love buildings–the older or odder, the better–and their endless details, and whether they are homes or hospitals, offices or auditoriums, farm sheds or factories, they all have stories to tell. Ultimately, I suppose, that’s the overarching guide to my photographic peregrinations just as much as to my poetry and essays and drawing and every other expressive form of art I attempt: I am trying to discern, guess, or invent the stories behind those things I’ve seen.
There are, you know, endless stories just waiting to be told.
Light Armor
Not everything that’s fierce is cause for fear,
for strength in a good cause is great indeed,
but not intended to make others bleed;
rather, to shield the weak and persevere
Against all odds, to seek the distant grail,
to lead the way when battle’s all around,
and when it’s won, to hold the conquered ground,
protecting treasures fragile, sweet and pale;
For guardian angels, pioneering, brave
adventurers and stalwart friends in stress,
must keep their fiercest watch and always dress
full-armored, so prepared to shield and save
Us humbler beings and what we hold dear;
Not everything that’s fierce is cause for fear!
See? I told you they show up unexpectedly; just after I gave you this messenger in another post, I got the idea for today’s sonnet.
Every trip tends to have its unique interests, but they all share certain qualities, too. One, for me, is the abundance of intriguing, useful, surprising, puzzling, inviting and sometimes downright amazing signs of all sorts that mark the way. Our summer road trip was chock full of them, too; many whizzed by too quickly at highway speed to be commemorated by me with my trusty little camera, but some served well to mark a few of the highlights and oddities of our pilgrimage west and back.
Some signs made me wonder if we’d suddenly gone far astray from our intended route, to another state, country or (occasionally) planet. [Remember to click on the images if you want to see them in greater detail.]
A few signs were rather provocative, and many simply amused me greatly for one reason or another.
Vintage signs often outlive their original purposes by being moved–or read–out of context. Unless, perhaps, the message has a more cosmic meaning…
Some of the most welcome signs are those very familiar ones not seen in a very long time. It doesn’t matter so much that I’ve frequented the place or embraced the item as that the sentimental landmark each represents of other persons and places is called to mind.
I’m especially fond, though, of those signs that seem to have lives of their own, through age and adventures unknown. I like to imagine what they denote beyond their mere artful decorations and texts.
On this particular escapade of ours, all signs pointed to a grand tour and many colorful memories. And led me, of course, to think ahead to all of the travels and signs yet to come in my life.
To Rest in Peace
Alas! for shadows carve my collarbones
and misery is lapping at my heels;
Death’s machinations turn, wheels within wheels,
and grind me for its grist between cold stones–
And yet, as dust-dry as I turn, breath blooms
persistently, a torture to my soul
when I had rather be devoured whole
and go on into Peace’s empty rooms–
Still, here I stay, lie atomized, forlorn,
forgotten on the fringes of what life
and loves I knew once, when my days were rife
with possibility as a new morn–
Let me die now, not live without a chance
of altering this endless Totentanz.
Lest you think me suffering myself, or pessimistic, I assure you I am alive and well. It’s just that I have seen many others struggle with prolonged and pitiful end-of-life dramas and was reminded this June when I saw the beautiful antique gravestones in Boston of how different things are now, when we have such nearly unbelievable powers to keep ourselves alive for tremendously long lives but have lost touch with when it’s acceptable or even desirable not to do so. If our skills for ensuring or encouraging genuine quality of life are far outstripped by our skills for lengthening it, what does that say about us? Generations removed from our forebears, whether in Boston or elsewhere, who knew much more primitive medicine, greater physical dangers, irreparable injuries and the concomitant shorter lifespans we have apparently long since forgotten, do we know how to accept death as a natural end to life and treat dying as a passage to be eased to the fullest extent instead of forbidden?
I’m not here a second time today to announce I’ve discovered the cure for halitosis, let alone cancer. But I’m back simply to share a link with you because another blogger’s words for today had such a thought-provoking effect on me and I figured you might find them equally intriguing. Jen, the smart and compassionate translator/interpreter for her charming and handsome malamute Rumpy over at Rumpydog, is a committed animal activist. My friends, you know that it’s more likely I should be committed [IYKWIM] than true that I am disciplined, self-confident or wise enough to be an active advocate for much of anything. But today Jen addressed a topic that’s long been nagging at me, to the extent that I know I’ve actually mentioned it to you: it’s not that we as humans are incapable of caring about things enough, too stupid to figure out some solutions, or unwilling to do the hard work to enact them–it’s that we are too self-centered to do so together with anyone who fails to think and care about, and approach, those problems in precisely the way we personally approve.
I’m absolutely certain that no matter how much I liked or admired Jen it would be impossible for me to agree 100% with her on everything, or her with me. But I’m also sure that I do deeply respect her commitment and willingness to act on it and speak her mind. So I encourage you to go and visit her to read her most sensible, cogent piece I’ve seen in ages about what does and doesn’t work in discussing, promoting, advocating for or acting in *any* good cause. I don’t know a solution, because I suspect it’s such a universal ill among humans that it would require Nobel Peace Prize brilliance *plus*. But if we gather around the conference table determined to listen, learn and share the best of ourselves, there just might be some hope for us. The very thought cheers me.Happy days to all of you, and many thanks to Jen for sharing. (Click on the word ‘sharing’ to go to her blog.)
Farm Frames.
I loved the sweet repetition of gorgeous farms of all sorts, in parts of every state.
Some of the images yielded by five weeks and six thousand miles’ worth of rambling cross-country seemed to want expression in my old favorite black and white imagery. And, not coincidentally, this set particularly showcases my obsessions with seeing patterns, repetition and commonalities.
Towers
Monolithic bare trees and sculptural bridges seemingly imitate each other.
Twisted Trees
Driftwood. A helical trunk amid Douglas-fir and vine maple companions.
AmeriCars the Beautiful
Car culture in the US may have long grown old, but it hasn’t stopped being a classic.
Boarded Up
Fruit growers’ packing crates. A burned house.
Shake Your Tailfeathers
Hawk? Maybe. Mallard, definitely.
Sunday School
The old shed behind the parsonage, the inner workings of a portative organ, and a vintage church.
God is in the Details
Small stuff, large impact.
Radii
Spokes that speak for themselves.
Elephants
An older model pachyderm and an older model Packard? (Nah, I think it was a Rolls.)
Strange Geometries
The wonder of a weird homemade aerial and the magic of a zebra.
One of the things I enjoy most as an artist–as those of you who frequent this joint know–is playing with all of the commonalities I find in the visual world. I am very much an analogous thinker; what I see is tested, examined, recognized and theorized on the basis of what it reminds me of at first glance. I suppose it’s the virtual equivalent of judging a book by its cover, but what it allows me when I’m thinking in strictly visual terms is the opportunity to fiddle with the ideas of what I imagine to be the links between one subject and another and as patterns emerge from it, use that for creative fodder, learn something about these pet subjects of mine, build images based on them, and in turn, learn something about myself along the way if I make even a little effort.
It’s very easy to become a collector. We all have our idiosyncratic passions and interests, to the degree that when we’re not actively gathering objects and concrete stuff that reflects them we are still busy building our internal storage of ideas and images related to them, and we end up with personalities shaped by, and like, them. People associate us with our sets of tastes and ways of thinking. Me, I am addicted to patterns and repetition and all of those other characteristics that seem to me to express the wholeness of the world. I like the unique iterations that make each part of the larger network have its own personality or meaning yet remain subservient in one way or another to the more visible and outspoken qualities that are held in common.
I strongly suspect that this simply showcases my longing for a wider world wherein the beauty of each individual is respected and nurtured yet the things we know we have in common are celebrated above all else because we treasure our place in a bigger picture. That’s a work of art that we shouldn’t have to take art classes to appreciate.
The answer, if you haven’t already guessed it, is Nothing at All.
Except, that is the problem.
I saw pictures in this week’s newspapers of international leaders meeting in the Tuileries to discuss whether it would be a good idea to attack Syria in response to the country’s use of chemical weapons on its own citizens. The Tuileries, if you don’t already know it, are exquisite, bucolic, gorgeous, peaceful gardens in the City of Light, Paris. A park full of such prettiness and solace as you’d find in any fortunate, war-free spot in the privileged world. Where it wouldn’t seem out of place to have a gathering of polite, well dressed, well-fed people speaking in confident tones of insight and wisdom and deciding what would likely appear to be, if you were out of earshot, where to go for dinner and a nice glass of wine after the opera.
Except that this opera happens to be a particularly brutal one, from the chillingly despotic callousness of a leader and his henchmen willing to murder their own countrymen en masse to the remote offices, boardrooms, streets and parks where a multitude of other leaders and citizens of other countries debate whether to kill some more humans in order to redirect the battle. What’s wrong with this picture, from my view, is the frightening sense that unless all of those who think it their business to intervene in such a disastrous situation are willing and able to have these theoretical discussions in, say what was a pretty, bucolic park in Syria and now exists instead in the heart of its darkest hours and gravest danger, they will never likely have a realistic sense of the probable consequences, good or bad, of any choice for the people ‘on the ground’, their fellow humans, and of course, ultimately for themselves.
Until we Americans have something of this literal kind of skin in the game, as it were, I can’t imagine how we can expect to do any right thing in such a situation, and I sense that this same problem might well apply to many other relatively safe, privileged nations and their leaders and citizenry. I would hope that reason and logic and wisdom will prevail no matter what is decided, or how, or by whom. But more than that, I hope that the tide worldwide will turn toward resolutions of all troubles and trials through some more honest, unselfish, patient and wholesome means that leaves all parties with at least the possibility of sitting at peace in any quiet and lovely place, eventually.
Yep, someone’s sneaking up on you. Or some thing is just about to get you. It’s really inevitable that stuff is about to happen and make you the punchline of the universe’s joke. That’s how it works. In fact, in a plus-perfect moment of synchronicity, despite my having written this post several days ago in preparation for posting on the 8th of September, I had a brain hiccup and completely forgot to press Publish on the appropriate day. So here I am giving you a two-fer in recompense. Pardon my pratfall!
The nice thing is that we’re all generally in line for the same sort of treatment, so when such craziness happens, the embarrassment of it all is rarely going to linger for long; soon enough, something silly will happen to somebody else in the room and the pangs of self-consciousness will be turned to sympathy for his or her plight, the mortification of being the center of derisive attentions muted by seeing them passed right along to another poor dupe. That is also how it works.
I’m not saying that I enjoy being the buffoon of the moment, mind. In the space of the last few days I managed to both fall off a shallow curb (only a near-miss, as I was able to convert the tripping into an awkward but deep curtsy to the people nearby) and trip forward up a step onto a hardwood floor, whose grain will soon be emblazoned on my knee in a variety of flamboyant purple colors by tomorrow, all while injuring nothing more seriously than my scant supply of dignity. And I’m not proud of this lack of grace, merely cognizant that it’s not limited strictly to me and the joke that remains in strangers’ minds has a lot more to do with the hilarity of the situation than it does with remembering what unknown fool performed the ignominious stunt that so brightened their day.
I’d love to think it possible to overcome and avoid all future Incidents of ridiculous stupidity and clumsiness simply because, once experienced and noted, they can be put to rest, but that is decidedly not how it works. So what I need to overcome and avoid is letting it get to me. I am bound by history, odds and my very nature to slip, fall, make egregious errors and squeeze a minimum of ten smaller mistakes into every day I’m alive, but nothing says I have to be defined exclusively by my failures and flops. Every once in a while I can work to turn such things to entertaining advantage. Who knows, if I pay attention, I might even see the little disaster coming and be able to duck in time to miss it and let it hit someone else for a change.
Art-Colored Glasses 