04 John Coltrane on being the breakthrough creative:

From a post by Maria Popova on Brain Pickings…

Truth is indestructible… History shows (and it’s the same way today) that the innovator is more often than not met with some degree of condemnation; usually according to the degree of his departure from the prevailing modes of expression or what have you. Change is always so hard to accept.¹

… may we all find truths to tell and the courage to tell them regardless of whether those around us are ready to accept them…

03 Photography:

Fiona Véronique…

… the images presented in this article are from “Riddle,” a recently released photobook by the artist…

Published as a photobook by Antics Publications in 2020, “Riddle” follows a road trip Véronique took with her sister, from Seattle, Washington to Elko Nevada.¹

… road trips to “look for America” are a common theme for photobooks, by American photographers (Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places), and foreign born photographers (Robert Frank, The Americans)… there is a high bar for this kind of work…

… i don’t know if this book meets that bar as i don’t have a copy to look through, but i believe many of the images in the book are quite solid and evocative…

… this one in particular is beautiful and rightfully headlines the article… the flat landscape, the trucks, the edge of a parking lot, the place chosen to sun oneself, at the apex of the corner of the parking lot… all quintessentially American… tipped on an angle (homage to Frank?) to slope down (suggesting a downhill run for the nation?)…

… i click through to the book purchase page and buy one of 50 copies for $30… why is it so cheap?, why are there any left?…

02 Buson Poetry:

… a poem cycle, about a beautiful young woman traveling home we are told… the willow tree is mentioned as it was yesterday… i am wondering about symbology of the willow tree…

… in Japanese myth and folklore, the willow is associated with ghosts¹…

… i look up river symbology in Japan, there is one article that talks about rivers representing the flow of life, which is so in many cultures… however, more generally water is significant in Japanese philosophy as one of the five elements of Godai…

水 Sui or mizu, meaning “Water”, represents the fluid, flowing, and the formless things in the world. Outside of the obvious example of rivers and the lake, plants are also categorized under sui, as they adapt to their environment, growing and changing according to the direction of the sun and the changing seasons. Blood and other bodily fluids are represented by sui, as are mental or emotional tendencies towards adaptation and change. Sui can be associated with thought, defensiveness, adaptability, flexibility, suppleness, and magnetism.²

… i return to yesterday’s poem and realize the broad symbology of water is important, along with the willow tree… a woman seeks to keep the poet to her, asks him not to journey on with the flow of the river, but he views her as the one journeying on while he remains as the ghost by the river that cannot follow… it’s a poem about death?…

… today’s poem talks about a young woman journeying through her life to return home to the brother and white haired mother she left to be on her own… again, the flow of life, the journey metaphorical… life’s journey…

01 First Thoughts:

… i am up earlier than usual… it is not even 4AM… i started coming to before 3… Fiona decide to clean my feet, she’s a tidy dog… yes, we have always let the dogs sleep with us… long ago, when we lived in a loft that got cold in the winter, we had three dogs who would cuddle with us on three dog nights…

… as early as i am awake, i am also alert, ready to go… not sure how that happens on only five hours of sleep…

… spoke with J on the phone yesterday… they had not been answering texts, missed a zoom meeting appointment… they are stressed out about their upcoming trip to see C and J… it’s not surprising…

… we talked about R whom we are both concerned about…

… Heather Cox Richardson makes the point that the country has flirted with oligarchy before, but never authoritarianism, which is what we are flirting with now…

… there is a bird starting its morning song already, 3:53 AM, sunrise isn’t until 5:30 AM…

… there is an update for Craft, which i am trying to remove from my system, so i don’t install it…

… the mini fan i got for my desktop is brilliant, has allowed me to work in my studio even with high temperatures outside… the studio is not air conditioned… some summers i have spent the entire summer in the dining room where there is AC… hoping to avoid that this year… who would have thought that an inexpensive little fan would do the trick…

07 Food Stuff:

A game changer…

… every now and again you learn something about preparing food that is transformational… one of those lessons came from watching Samin Nosrat on Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat… she told me to salt meat hours before you are going to cook it…

… nearly every recipe i have used for cooking a good cut of meat says salt and pepper just before cooking… no, no, no, no!… hours before!… liberally, joyously salt it and then put it in the fridge…

… pull it out a half hour before cooking to warm up… then cook away… no need to salt at the table, it’s already integral to the meat…

06 Micro Poem:

Creek waters riffle by– on the far side, an orange float ring.

05 Walking:

Daily photo walk…

… these steps by the falls are a favorite stopping place…

… this school building was built in 1955, the year i was born… had i lived in Beacon then i might have attended elementary school there… it looks set to easily outlast me… i wonder how many children got their first sense of who they are wandering it’s halls?… i wonder what they have become?…

… i like the colors of these houses together…

… sitting in another one of my favorite stops by Fishkill Creek… note the orange inner tube on the opposite bank… isn’t it interesting the way the landscape revolves around it?…

… some pictures of things noticed along the way…

… the walk of sorrow…

… my wife and i refer to this stretch of road as “the walk of sorrow” because we saw sad looking people walking down it all the time… the people come from Hedgewood assisted living facility a little further down the road… the facility houses people who are not able to fully function in broader society but are no threat to themselves or others…

04 My Work

Having just posted about Jurgen Teller…

… i thought i would share a link to a body of work that recently appeared in a solo show at WAAM (Woodstock Artist Association and Museum) in Woodstock, NY… it was my first solo show that i did not organize myself… when i said at the end of my previous post that i am more of a Basho poetry sort of person, this is how that manifests in my photographic work…

… a couple of examples…

03 Juergen Teller and Skateboard Fashion

An article on a new skateboard fashion line incorporating the images of Juergen Teller…

… an interesting character, fashion and art photography that often (always?) pushes the boundaries of good taste (many would say steps well over it) in presenting male and female bodies…

… i have one of his photo books…

Cover of Unterwegs Mit Juergen Teller

Spread from Unterwegs Mit Juergen Teller

… it’s a collection of photographs taken during his career with brief stories accompanying each… it is frank and largely heterosexual, even if it incorporates gay and trans personalities… it, like the fashion industry, very sexually oriented… there is a picture of Nobuyoshi Araki with a beer bottle sprouting erect-penis-like from his crotch (a frat boy cliche if you ask me, but then, it’s Araki)…

… he seems to be an equal opportunity boundary pusher, young nude women, old nude women, nude men (mostly his middle aged self), men’s genitals, women’s genitals, men’s sphincters, women’s sphincters, trans women, black men, black women, most of them celebrities of one kind or another…

… from where i sit it seems a wild life… my libido is interested and perhaps a little envious, but the poetry of Basho is more my style…

02 Meditations:

Buson poetry: Song of the Yodo River…

… on the face of it, a poem about a man and a woman, she asking him to moor his boat and stay with her, he saying she is the one on the move and he cannot follower her…

… i follow up on the Yodo river and Naniwa (what is now central Osaka)…

… what i find is minimal, economic facts and statistics…

… here is a Hokusai print depicting the Yodo river…

… the woman appears to be Chinese, writing in Chinese verse, the man appears to be Japanses, writing in Chinese quatrain format, but in Japanese language… is this a poem about the relationship between two countries, two cultures?…

… the poem is a little sad…

01 First Thoughts

These are not my best thoughts, just the first ones that rise out of my brain in the morning as the coffee starts to do its thing…

… Heather Cox Richardson reviewed Biden’s speech last night and compared it to a speech FDR gave on the occasion of the fall of Rome to the allies during the Second World War… it’s a hopeful post… we have some difficult years ahead, but for the moment the trajectory seems good…

… back to the regular “work week,” in quotes because i don’t have a job per se that pushes me into that rhythm, only the job i have given myself, my photography…

… i took the Nikon out on Sunday… i needed a break from the iPhone camera… i seem to be more thoughtful, more “focused” if you will, more able to be in an art making frame of mind when i use it… i am not sure there should be such a difference in the frame of mind but there is…

… a micro.blogger talking about taking a break from twitter… as i posted yesterday, i have begun to reconfigure my social media engagement and it feels good… i will spend much less time in the irritating environments of twitter instagram and Facebook… i will keep my accounts because it is the best way to share with people i have in person relationships with, but it will be mostly to share what i write here…

… it turns out i can link Tumblr to my Micro.blog account, but i am not sure i want to… not clear that everything i post to m.b should go to Tumblr…

_ Headache, unwilling mind– morning after consequences._

… today i set up a Mastodon account and toyed with feeding from my notesonattentionpaid.com blog into my Tumblr account…

… i also got lost in a thicket of how to’s and why this’s and not that’s about Micro.blog, trying to educate myself to how it works and what’s possible…

… i have a bit of a headache, though that has as much to do with overindulgence last night as it does with concentrating on the computer screen and learning…

… patience and perseverance will be required… it’s a new world to me, but the idea that i can reduce my interaction with Facebook and Instagram to a minimum is very attractive…

… i am thinking i will need to be a little more thoughtful about posts i make, if they are to make sense across platforms… i can feel the potential though… a new day is dawning…

04 Scenes From a Walk

03 Lightroom Enhanced Mode

While i was away…

… Adobe issued an update which allows you to double the pixel length and width of an image… i can now print images to a size of 40” x 60” at 300 dpi… bit of a game changer… heretofore this was done through a third party app with an expensive subscription model…

… tried it on one image… really seems to bog down my computer…

… i am guessing i will only use it for exhibition prints…

02 Meditations

Buson, long poems…

… Mourning Hokuju Rosen

… so it’s not haiku, but long form poetry… i read the first one about someone loved departed… the poet grieves the absence, it is unclear whether the one loved will return, just that they left and went far away… then there is the friend who lives on the other side of the river…

… i do some research and discover that the poem is about the death of Hokuju Rosen and the great sadness it brings him… i am not able to find much about Hokuju Rosen, it seems he was a master Buson studied under… the last stanza of the poem…

By the image of Amida, I light no candle

and offer no flowers. I sit here alone,

my heart heavy, filled with gratitude.

… Amida, I learn, is Amida Nyorai, the Buddha of Limitless Light…

_ Amida Nyorai (Sanskrit: Amitabha Tathagata), the Buddha of Limitless Light, sits upon a lotus pedestal with his hands forming the mudra of meditation. Amida presides over his own paradise, the Western Pure Land, to which he welcomes any being who calls upon his name. His benevolent gaze, directed toward the viewer below, is symbolic of this boundless compassion. The Pure Land sects of Buddhism, with their emphasis on salvation through faith, stirred the imagination of both courtiers and commoners alike, and temples dedicated to Amida were constructed throughout Japan. Originally installed at a temple in the vicinity of Mount Kōya, this sculpture and the Dainichi Nyorai on the central altar were both acquired by the Museum through negotiations with Yamanaka & Co., the pioneering dealers in Japanese art.¹_

Public Domain photograph, via The Met, Fifth Avenue, NY

… i love the idea of a heavy heart filled with gratitude… contradictory feelings… Buson is sad to loose his teacher, but feels gratitude for his presence in his life…

07 Mindfulness

_ A raven squawking outside my window— how poetic._

05 Noisey Raven

… croaking and honking outside… hmmm… with all this haiku research i now look up the cultural significance of the Raven… it’s an ambiguous omen… a mediator between the living and the dead it can portend transformation, and therefore, rebirth, prophecy, insight, but also sickness and death… here is what a wikipedia article has to say about it generally…

Many references to ravens exist in world lore and literature. Most depictions allude to the appearance and behavior of the wide-ranging common raven (Corvus corax). Because of its black plumage, croaking call, and diet of carrion, the raven is often associated with loss and ill omen. Yet, its symbolism is complex. As a talking bird, the raven also represents prophecy and insight. Ravens in stories often act as psychopomps, connecting the material world with the world of spirits.¹

06 Pandemic Skill

… my wife chose sourdough bread, i chose the classic French omelette… it has taken about eight months but this morning i produced a near perfect omelette… i have complicated the mission by refusing to use a nonstick skillet, trying both carbon steel and cast iron, eventually ordering the specialized Japanese pan the omelette in the pic is presented in…

04 Literary Open Mic in Beacon, NY

… Donna Minkowitz, author of Growing Up Golem (among many other things) and a friend, is hosting an open mic event on July 29th for local writers and poets… i just might have to attend and read a few of my fumbling attempts at haiku… it’s about time i get back to writing and, more important, sharing what i write…

03 Laurie Anderson, United States Live

… fascinating review of the performer and album…

And so began Laurie Anderson’s own state of the union. The record of this eight-hour, two-night show—1984’s four-and-a-half-hour box set, United States Live—is a gesamtkunstwerk, a bold federation of hobbyist tinkering and scientific wizardry, sound sculpture and rock music, gender and social studies, philosophy and linguistics. With performance chops equal to the Gipper’s, Anderson untangled Reagan’s knot of tech and hope and power and wove together an alternative form of patriotism, one that centers disorientation and finds authenticity in imagination. Along the way, she created an American masterpiece.¹

02 Meditation

Buson Haiku…

… the very first poem i read is about cutting the last flower, a peony, from the garden… peonies are spring flowers and come relatively early… it is interesting that it is the last flower in the garden, unless it is a garden dedicated to peonies only… i suspect symbolism here, as it seems one always must…

Also known as the ‘King of Flowers’, the peony is a Japanese flower that is used as a symbol of good fortune, bravery, and honour. It is often used in tattoos to signify a devil-may-care attitude.¹

… so, a poem about old age?… a life that has run out of good fortune, bravery, honor?… both?…

… a poem with bird symbolism and historical reference, written on his death bed, a winter warbler in the hedge outside and a reference to Chinese poet Wang Wei… is the winter warbler the same as the Japanese bush warbler?… if so, it is a harbinger of spring and rebirth in Japanese literature, film and art… Wang Wei was a famous Chinese poet from the Tang Dynasty period…

01 First Thoughts

… did a bird start singing extra early or do i normally not notice as early?… bird song had me awake at 3:00 AM without much hope of getting back to sleep…

… right now, fireworks going off in the distance… yes, at 4:00 AM… Independence Day…

… Heather Cox Richardson post is on the Declaration of Independence, it’s aspirations, and the similarities between the present day and the pre Civil War days… will we end in a civil war this time?… she believes that a few wealthy white men (mostly) are trying to grab all the wealth and power for themselves… it seems more foundational than that to me… i think the white male patriarchy is experiencing an existential threat moment and is reacting accordingly… that it is disgusting and wrong headed is a given… it is also instinctual and likely to cause a lot more trouble before being turned back if it is turned back… as for me… i love the multiarchy… long live the multiarchy!…

… just checked my Plausible stats… i was wondering if anyone was looking at my posts… there has been no commenting on anything i write, so it feels like i send things out into the void and nothing comes back… Plausible stats suggest otherwise… there has been a steady increase in views since i began tracking, and it is useful to share things on FB as it does drive the most traffic to the site…

… and now that i have written the above i sit here wishing i was able to let go of the need for attention… that i just put it out there and let it have the life it has without my ego being staked to it… make because you need to make… what the world does with it after that is up to the world…

… and then the countervailing argument that we seek recognition because recognition enhances our ability to survive and thrive… we are programmed to seek it… from the get go… as they say… so maybe it’s a matter of just acknowledging it as it floats through consciousness… yes, i see you ego, you want to be loved… there, there, here’s a big hug… now move on, i have better things to do than let you twist me up over lack of attention…

05 Mindfulness

_ Rain drops fall on the creek— the news spreads concentrically._

04 Tarra St. Hill

… an article about TSH in AnOther Magazine… i am initially interested because the lead photograph is of TSH from the waist up, naked… yes, the sex hook worked as it usually does…

… AnOther Mag is largely a fashion focused publication, but includes some good spreads on art of the moment, especially photographic art… in the past i have not been much interested in fashion, but a niece in the fashion industry and my interest in how women are presented photographically have converged to inspire me to pay more attention…

… TSH was apparently a muse to Corrine Day who was a fashion photographer, documentary photographer, model and author of Diary, in which she wrote about the experiences of herself and the constellation of people around her… Diary, published in 2000, sounds as though it has been generationally important… and when i look the book up i discover it is out of print and collectible, selling for north of $300 for a hardcover copy… it’s available as an ebook through a membership gated portal… i will investigate that later…

… as i read the article on the new TSH zine… it strikes me as largely a PR piece meant to enhance the notoriety of TSH… that the article leads with a partially nude portrait is to draw people (especially men?) in… TSH reminds me of the Blade Runner character Priss in the selection of photos offered from the magazine… i imagine that is intentional…