Mystic light…
June 30, 2009
After a dark summer rain storm a mystic light burst through the atmosphere….I made the extra effort to run into the woods to capture it….I knew I would regret it if I didn’t…you only have a quick moment to get it before the light recedes back into the dark….a small hesitation can be enough to lose the magic…so I threw some shorts on-don’t want the neighbors calling the police now, do we?-grabbed the camers and ran into the woods…it was not a mistake…there was breathtaking magic unfolding on the side of the hill..shafts of light shooting through the leaves and trees to create a cathedral of natural beauty…
The Restorative Nature of Yoga…
June 29, 2009
The restorative nature of yoga…I had the pleasure of three different yoga teachers in the past week…Diann…Solange…and Christina…each in their turn had thier own style and unique perspective on yoga but whatever the differences after each class restored…after all, how much news can one take of Wacko Jacko?…the things that have concerned my average countryman has often driven me to drink to excess and it’s one reason why I need to get into the yoga class…but it’s not just after a hangover…it’s living in a culture that has fundamentally different values that I possess…the rampant pursuit of materialism and social status has never been my aim and when one is surrounded by them it leaves a strong sense of miasma in the soul…when I’ve got that feeling I know I have to get myself into class..
Please Wave The Flag…
June 15, 2009
Please wave the flag…in the name of our civil liberties…making the world safe for freedom…when we don’t even have it here…I am a photographer who has been heavily influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson…I like to take pictures of my town and the landscape I know…lately, John Updike has a new collection of short stories about memories of his town…I am not saying at the level of Updike but I am aiming for that sort of portrayal….
My family has been in town for 60 years…the post office used to be down the street from where it is now…I even worked it in one summer after college…it was memorable for a lot of reasons the least of which I was reading Bukowski’s Post Office at the time…
As America has changed over the last several decades so has the town…that would be obvious point no matter what…people used to know everyone here…the eccentrics…the drunks…the snobs…so on and so on…but that has changed…and people with a few dollars act with a huge sense of entilement…because they can drive a porsche or live in mcMansion that somehow they are important…in reality they are not…they see litttle…they know less…when downturn came last September so many of them dropped like flies…it was literally here today gone tomorrow…I grew up here…I know the woods like the back of my hand…I know the streets…and I know the light as it changes through the seasons…for the most part the professionals who come here live on the twelve year to eighteen year plan…that’s how long it takes to get their test tube socially promoted kids through the system…it’s cheaper to pay the 40 or so grand a year school taxes than it would be to pay individual tuitition at a private posh school down in Manhattan…this is the way of global capital…notice they don’t make anything…they just know how to move paper around and believe me you the laws they break in the process would make your head spin right off your head…none of their children die in the senseless wars they go grandly promote…they could care less about the downsizing of American jobs as long as it means more profit for them…
so please wave flag…when that officer asks you for your id, your phone number, your profession, and what you’re doing gladly tell him everything he wants to know all in the name of freedom…
The Rain Came Down…
June 4, 2009
The rain came down last night and I got caught in it…after mixing on the computer all day I needed a way to unwound so I went for a swim. I knew this was a chance as it was misting when I went in. I rolled the dice and I lost on that score for when I came out there was more of a pronounced drizzle…but it felt good to be on the bike riding through the dark streets of White Plains…I got to the train station five minutes before the train and was able to have a cigarette and listen to X from the Bowery on my ipod…there were the usual homies and hispanics hanging around…the occasional cop…broken down taxis waiting for a fare…the train itself was populated with the usual burnt out alienated commuters…my arrival in the ‘Qua was greeted with stronger rain…the blues….so I smoked my last cigarette looking at the thick green brush across the tracks…I feel restored when I am there alone in the night, in the ‘qua…when I am around too many people it fries my brain because I go into writer mode and try to decipher their personalities which short circuits the brains…it’s a long ways from the art days of Robert Rauschenberg and Jaspar Johns when I could fly high in the abstraction of my thought…America only enjoys pretty young people as artists unless you’ve established a serious reputation…I am no longer any of those things…but when I can I like to fly high in the abstract of thought…
so I thought I would be a bad ass and walk with my bike through the gorge in the rain…I’ve done it before and thought I would again…the rain falling through the leaves was making a beautiful poetical sound but I kept going off the path…also in the back of my mind was the paranoia that some angry critter would come out at me…now the animals are always more afraid of humans but the darkness has a way of invoking notions of fear…
somehow this segues with me writing about Diann’s class yesterday…she talks often about the fear and letting go…yesterday’s class was a poignant one and I am trying to remember the salient facts but somehow they are escaping my mind at the moment…one of the joys of taking her class is she makes many of them which is great but makes it hard to remember them all…I just remember being a little late and coming into a packed class…you never know what you’re going to get with gym yoga…sometimes the intensity is passionate and sometimes there is no one there at all…I know it was intense for me because I hadn’t been to her class in two weeks…Diann runs a vigorous class and when you miss a couple of them you’re behind the eight ball…still, my body was thirsty for the class and it lapped it right up..sometimes you really need that yoga class and nothing is going to stop you…I had been raging the week before down in the city at the X show and hadn’t done any working out…one thing I do remember about the class was some of the twists she had us do…
“The twists remove the toxins, ” she said. “You might think yoga is about being pretty on the outside and it is about that but it’s mainly about what is going on in the inside.”
Outside or inside I needed to remove some serious toxins I undoubtedly picked up from the rage down in the city…
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
21st Century…
June 2, 2009
I just saw X at the Bowery Ballroom….the band was in top form as they always are…real pros….the music sounds better than ever but it can’t escape its 20the century roots…the thinking is retro…this was reflected in the taping policy…whenever the beeping red light of a taper was seen either the Bowery’s staff or the band’s roadie was on that person to stop it. I got nailed twice…I beat it on the third night once I knew what the scene was…there in lies the contradiction…the punk ethos is questioning authority not establishing and enforcing it…taping should be permitted as it relates to the free flow of information and the exchange of ideas….inhibiting this process makes us passive as individuals and ultimately makes us docile subjects of the state…this is what I mean by retroactive…most the of fans from what I could see what to come and have their fantasy of X and in punk in general…but they don’t really know X or punk for that matter…you don’t see X fans at any of the band members solo projects where I believe they really demonstrate their talent…seeing X is like seeing these artist’s in their Bealte incarnation…it’s like a cartoon version of themselves…there they are playing the songs like they played thirty years ago…it’s not real…the band should be touring on a new batch of songs commenting on things how they are now in the present, not some fantasy of what the past was which is why taping should be allowed…they are not going to stop it so why legalize it and bring the quality up?…why not bring the band into the present and have them as a force against the brutal stale corporate culture we live in…that would be punk….
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