Santa Monica Pier, Thursday March 15, 2012
What Hurricane? Just another surfing day.
Ditch Plains, Montauk, NY
Friday August 26, 2011
Friday August 26, 2011
click on image to enlarge
Going Low - A Journey into the Heart of South Carolina's Low Country; Spring 2010
Right after you pass the steaming Volcano, the one with kids running around on it, waving putters above their heads like little Lords of the Flies. Right after the window full of beach balls and boogie boards that looks like an oversized gumball machine and the giant, neon crab blinking his claws at you… Route 17 South suddenly goes dark. This is the beginning of Brookgreen Gardens State Park - nine thousand acres of forest, meadows and gardens that act as a buffer - a sort of demilitarized zone - between the tacky, plastic free-for-all of Myrtle Beach and the quiet, natural magic of the South Carolina Low Country.
One in 8 Million
Click here or on the image to see New York through Patrick Harris' eyes
LA Love Letter
Haiku by Denice Cacace
from Spirit Fish - Voices of the South Coast
choppy lines
pulse across the water -
wind writing
through the window crack
a chickadee calls
light is coming, is coming
on easy curl of wind
a black hawk floats
counting salmon
*I found these Haiku in a collection of essays and poems by writers from Oregon's South Coast. The thing that immediately struck me about these Haiku was how the third or "punch" line added so much color and meaning to the first two lines and what a thrill it was to read these lines in order and discover their full meaning sequentially.
For example, we've all seen hawks floating on the wind, but the words "counting salmon" suddenly paint the entire picture... they add a river and trees, they give the bird's flight focus and posture, they link the bird to its environment and even suggest our link to the greater environment. The chickadees's voice comes to life lyrically in the words "light is coming, is coming" and those words also paint the predawn outside the window, morning chill and all. And the choppy lines in the first Haiku could have been from a boat, they could have been ocean surf, but the word's "wind writing" turn them into ripples on a lake. Beautiful.
from Spirit Fish - Voices of the South Coast
choppy lines
pulse across the water -
wind writing
through the window crack
a chickadee calls
light is coming, is coming
on easy curl of wind
a black hawk floats
counting salmon
*I found these Haiku in a collection of essays and poems by writers from Oregon's South Coast. The thing that immediately struck me about these Haiku was how the third or "punch" line added so much color and meaning to the first two lines and what a thrill it was to read these lines in order and discover their full meaning sequentially.
For example, we've all seen hawks floating on the wind, but the words "counting salmon" suddenly paint the entire picture... they add a river and trees, they give the bird's flight focus and posture, they link the bird to its environment and even suggest our link to the greater environment. The chickadees's voice comes to life lyrically in the words "light is coming, is coming" and those words also paint the predawn outside the window, morning chill and all. And the choppy lines in the first Haiku could have been from a boat, they could have been ocean surf, but the word's "wind writing" turn them into ripples on a lake. Beautiful.
Impressions of The Badlands, Black Hills and Little Bighorn; Summer 2010
What's in an Image?
I love looking at an image and not knowing what it is at first, then discovering what it is and marveling at the details, the components and mechanics, that comprise the thing itself but seem so odd when seen from a different perspective, like this picture of...
Fifteen Unforgettable Movie Moments
(a collection of essays from Salon)
(a collection of essays from Salon)
Theater unknown (Times Square), New York City
I'm only guessing in saying that the evening began with Popeye's fried chicken and Budweiser, but it's a good guess. In the long-gone days when Times Square was decrepit, dangerous and ringed with cockroach-infested, odoriferous theaters showing all grades of violent or pornographic cinema, my best friend and I made numerous opening-night pilgrimages there, mostly for horror films. The degree of talk-back and the atmosphere of incipient danger made almost every Times Square viewing experience memorable, but none stands out as clearly as watching John Carpenter's "The Thing," which was both an early-'80s special-effects landmark and also one of the tensest, most electrified horror movies of that era.
If the original 1951 "Thing From Another World" is largely understood as Cold War allegory, it'd be stretching a point to sense a political motivation in Carpenter's remake (despite his clear leftist leanings in other films). But it's ominous, claustrophobic, wintry and scary as shit — all leading up to that incredibly tense scene when the trapped Antarctic scientists agree to undergo blood tests with a live electric wire, to determine which of them is the eponymous shape-shifting alien. The packed, rowdy, half-drunken audience had fallen dead silent as the test moved from one blood sample to another, until a big guy in the last row stood up, pointed at the screen, and announced in a booming voice: "That dude is the motherfuckin' Thing! I bet you a million dollars!"
Well, he was right, of course, and we all fell apart laughing and it was some time before order was restored. I'm not saying I want that level of interactivity at every movie, but somehow the guy hadn't ruined the movie or the scene or the whole experience, not at all. He had just kicked it up to another level. We can talk a lot about the communal moviegoing experience and the emotional and psychological effect of cinema and the way people become immersed in it while maintaining a critical or analytical distance. But for me that moment is like Zen lightning — it explains it all, without explaining anything.
— Andrew O'Hehir
Read more Unforgettable Movie Moments at Salon
Eward Abbey could be called a naturalist, but I don't think that's a rough enough sounding description for him. I don't think he ever pressed a flower into his journal. I doubt he ever collected rocks. He was content to explore the earth and leave it as he found it. And if he found it paved he was content to throw a beer can out his car window because, as he'd say, it's already ruined.
He fantasized about blowing up the Glen Canyon Dam, the massive piece of industrial violence that caused the flooding of the Colorado river, forming what is now known as Lake Powell - a misnomer if there ever was one because Mr. Powell loved that river and would surely have been as appalled by the dam as Mr. Abbey. Abbey was one of the last people to raft the now flooded section of river, tread its sandbars and wooded side canyons before they were drowned, entombed in the gathering silt. He wrote about it in Desert Solitaire and he vented his ecoterrorist impulses in the hilarious novel The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Derek Paravicini - Musical Genius
Extremely disabled Derek Paravicini doesn't even know how old he is and can't execute simple tasks like holding up three fingers, but he can play the piano on a level few, if any, humans ever achieve… bringing into question the very definition of "disability" and the mysterious nature of the savant.
Essay: Mississippi Drift by Matt Power
River Vagrants in the Age of Wal-Mart (from Harper's)
As if to augur my own psychological dissolution, the raft itself was falling apart. The heavy oak transom to which the 200-pound engine had been bolted was pulling out from the raft’s wooden frame. A little more torque from the engine and it would rip itself right off, sinking to the bottom of the channel like an anvil. Thrown up against the shore by wakes, we tied up to a tree outside the town of Hastings, Minnesota, where Matt told us we would need to stay for several days to fix the broken frame. He ordered me to find a Wal-Mart and return with a little electric trolling motor, which could help steer the drifting raft or pull it out of the way of a tow. I walked up through Hastings, down the main street of curio shops and antiques stores, past the end of the town sidewalks, and out along the highway.
As if to augur my own psychological dissolution, the raft itself was falling apart. The heavy oak transom to which the 200-pound engine had been bolted was pulling out from the raft’s wooden frame. A little more torque from the engine and it would rip itself right off, sinking to the bottom of the channel like an anvil. Thrown up against the shore by wakes, we tied up to a tree outside the town of Hastings, Minnesota, where Matt told us we would need to stay for several days to fix the broken frame. He ordered me to find a Wal-Mart and return with a little electric trolling motor, which could help steer the drifting raft or pull it out of the way of a tow. I walked up through Hastings, down the main street of curio shops and antiques stores, past the end of the town sidewalks, and out along the highway.
Poetry - Three that I Like
How do we find poetry? In English classes? In the New Yorker? Chiseled onto the back of a public bathroom door? Read over a loud speaker once every four years at the Presidential inauguration? It doesn't seem to be a prevalent craft in our popular culture anymore. It doesn't serve to inform, inspire and guide us the way it once did. We have a Poet Laureate... but can you name her? One of the poets below, Billy Collins, was Poet Laureate from 2001-2003. But that's not how I found out about him. He gave a reading at an elementary school in the town where I grew up. My mother attended, bought two of his books and asked him to sign them to me for my birthday. I loved them so much I read one of his poems at my father's funeral. Thanks, Mom.
I know of John Updike mainly because he loved golf and wrote many funny short stories and essays on the game that have appeared in the collections of golf stories that everyone gives me for Christmas. But I never thought of him as a poet until the day he died and Jim Lehrer gave him a nice fifteen minute tribute on PBS including a reading of a poem he wrote called "A Rescue." They also aired a ten minute interview with him from 2003 in which he described his own writing as "Bright and hopeful attempts to bottle some small portion of the truth." In a forward to one of his books he wrote, "My duty was to describe reality as it had come to me, to give the mundane its beautiful due."
I know of John Updike mainly because he loved golf and wrote many funny short stories and essays on the game that have appeared in the collections of golf stories that everyone gives me for Christmas. But I never thought of him as a poet until the day he died and Jim Lehrer gave him a nice fifteen minute tribute on PBS including a reading of a poem he wrote called "A Rescue." They also aired a ten minute interview with him from 2003 in which he described his own writing as "Bright and hopeful attempts to bottle some small portion of the truth." In a forward to one of his books he wrote, "My duty was to describe reality as it had come to me, to give the mundane its beautiful due."
Bright Star
by John Keats
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art---
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite*,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors---
No---yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever---or else swoon in death.
*Origin of the English word hermit from eremos (Greek adj.) - empty, desolate; eremia (n.) - desert; eremite (n.) - someone who lives alone in the desert. The reference here is to an unidentified star which, like a hermit, sits apart from the world.
by John Keats
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art---
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite*,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors---
No---yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever---or else swoon in death.
*Origin of the English word hermit from eremos (Greek adj.) - empty, desolate; eremia (n.) - desert; eremite (n.) - someone who lives alone in the desert. The reference here is to an unidentified star which, like a hermit, sits apart from the world.
A Rescue
by John Updike
Today I wrote some words that will see print.
Maybe they will last "forever," in that
someone will read them, their ink making
a light scratch on his mind, or hers.
I think back with greater satisfaction
upon a yellow bird--a goldfinch?--
that had flown into the garden shed
and could not get out,
battering its wings on the deceptive light
of the dusty, warped-shut window.
Without much reflection, for once, I stepped
to where its panicked heart
was making commotion, the flared wings drumming,
and with clumsy soft hands
pinned it against a pane,
held loosely cupped
this agitated essence of the air,
and through the open door released it,
like a self-flung ball,
to all that lovely perishing outdoors.
by John Updike
Today I wrote some words that will see print.
Maybe they will last "forever," in that
someone will read them, their ink making
a light scratch on his mind, or hers.
I think back with greater satisfaction
upon a yellow bird--a goldfinch?--
that had flown into the garden shed
and could not get out,
battering its wings on the deceptive light
of the dusty, warped-shut window.
Without much reflection, for once, I stepped
to where its panicked heart
was making commotion, the flared wings drumming,
and with clumsy soft hands
pinned it against a pane,
held loosely cupped
this agitated essence of the air,
and through the open door released it,
like a self-flung ball,
to all that lovely perishing outdoors.
Thesaurus
by Billy Collins
It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.
It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.
by Billy Collins
It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.
It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.
Poetry - Two of my own
Handwritten Letter
Be gone blinking cursor, dead white light.
Give me the glow of filament or flame,
The scratching of wind whipped boughs
On the darkened pane.
Give me a blank sheet and a bottle of ink.
A moment of silence to think.
What small essence of the truth
Might I discover then,
From the whisper of thought
and the scratch of the pen?
Be gone blinking cursor, dead white light.
Give me the glow of filament or flame,
The scratching of wind whipped boughs
On the darkened pane.
Give me a blank sheet and a bottle of ink.
A moment of silence to think.
What small essence of the truth
Might I discover then,
From the whisper of thought
and the scratch of the pen?
Gettin’ All Poetiky
Everyone tries to get all poetiky
Choosing words that clove and heave
And hang in awkward silence -
Metaphors, cryptic allusions,
Confounding phrases that sound suspiciously like
The creaking of an engine that needs a shot of oil.
But having stopped by these snowy woods
And fearful of feeling stupid for
Missing something sharp and prophetic
Hidden among the shadows and shifting boughs,
I turn a pine cone over in my hands,
Breathe in the bark and frozen earth,
Listen to the hushed conversation
Between wispy needle and groaning limb.
Everyone tries to get all poetiky
Choosing words that clove and heave
And hang in awkward silence -
Metaphors, cryptic allusions,
Confounding phrases that sound suspiciously like
The creaking of an engine that needs a shot of oil.
But having stopped by these snowy woods
And fearful of feeling stupid for
Missing something sharp and prophetic
Hidden among the shadows and shifting boughs,
I turn a pine cone over in my hands,
Breathe in the bark and frozen earth,
Listen to the hushed conversation
Between wispy needle and groaning limb.
Essay: High in Hell by Kevin Fedarko
Chewing Psychotropic Foliage in the Worst Place on Earth (from Esquire)
So if you ever happen to find yourself skimming through the troposphere high above the Horn of Africa, the engines of your cargo jet clawing at the currents of sub-Saharan air rolling off the lip of the Ethiopian plateau and down toward the Red Sea, there will come a moment when you'll have to admit that the cockpit of an aging DC-8 with a broken oil-pressure gauge and a washed-out picture of a Ugandan mountain gorilla emblazoned on the tail offers a damn fine view of the most wretched place on the planet.
So if you ever happen to find yourself skimming through the troposphere high above the Horn of Africa, the engines of your cargo jet clawing at the currents of sub-Saharan air rolling off the lip of the Ethiopian plateau and down toward the Red Sea, there will come a moment when you'll have to admit that the cockpit of an aging DC-8 with a broken oil-pressure gauge and a washed-out picture of a Ugandan mountain gorilla emblazoned on the tail offers a damn fine view of the most wretched place on the planet.
I don't remember how I discovered this book, but I do remember that reading the first chapter was one of the most revelatory reading experiences of my life. Since then I have reread it over and over again and it remains one of my favorite pieces of writing.
Sadly the book as a whole does not live up to those first thirty pages. There are inspired moments throughout, but it's very long and it loses the sharpness and agility of the opening salvo. The impression I get is that the rest of the book doesn't know itself as well as the first chapter does. It doesn't move with the same grace and confidence, with the same purpose and direction.
I've heard that Don Delillo originally published the first chapter as a stand alone piece in a magazine, so maybe he wrote the book as a continuation of that and not something he originally saw it in its entirety. It was never a David in a block marble. But the opening chapter is its own David and honestly I can't imagine an entire book written at that level. It's like a no-hitter or the Mona Lisa. It's a once in a career peak performance. The rest of the book was bound to be a disappointment following on its heels.
Here is the beginning:
Video: When Languages Die
There are known to be roughly 7000 distinct languages spoken worldwide, half of those will be "dead" (have no living speakers and no written record) within this century (a rate of one language every two weeks.) This is an interview with linguist David Harrison about his incredible efforts to save dying languages around the world - to embed himself in cultures to learn and preserve their languages before they vanish.
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