20220428.04

Over 40 Years Later, The Wobblies Is as Relevant as Ever

Newly restored documentary film, The Wobblies, making the rounds… is it me, or does it seem like there is a resurgence of labor organizing to beat back the Oligarchs?…

… i have signed up to receive emails from Jörg Colberg, one of the photobook reviewers i follow… recently he sent an email talking about The Archive of Public Protest… its a photo site dedicated to the sharing of photographs of the protests in Poland…

The Archive brings together visual traces of social activism, grassroots initiatives opposing not just political decisions but also breaches of democratic norms and human rights. It is a collection of images that constitute a warning against rising right wing populism and discrimination in the broadest sense of the term: xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and also the climate crisis. In establishing the Archive, its creators wish to prolong the life of their images, which are connected with specific events, and whose existence ends with their publication in the press. The APP gathers together photographs in a single, easily accessible collection, which will remain accessible to researchers, artists, and activists. Additionally, use of the Archive’s resources will be open to all users who express a desire to communicate the values with which its creators identify.¹

… it’s worth checking out here…

Paz Errázuriz, “La Jaula, Talca” (1984/2014), Inkjet print, 12 5/8 × 17 3/8 in. (32.07 × 44.13 cm)

… an article in Hyplerallergic about Paz Errázuriz’s photographs documenting trans sex worker communities in Chile during the reign of Pinochet… twenty of the photographs have entered the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angelas…

… this looks interesting…

• The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52… a documentary about searching for the 52-hertz whale that has become a symbol of alienation to hordes on the internet… the whale apparently produces sounds at a frequency that other whales can’t hear… this is assumed to mean the whale can’t find friends… it’s apparently available on Hulu… we have Hulu… for more info, this review in Hyperallergic…

Modern Nature, Derek Jarman

… the descriptions of promiscuous gay culture continue to put me off… rather than a culture of same sex love and commitment it is a culture of profligate sex in dingy underground clubs, dark alleys, any available bathroom… i check myself on whether this is a prejudice, it might be, the same images of heterosexual abandon don’t put me off as much, though i am less attracted to them than one on one love and sex together… i have tried sex for sex for its own sake and it is not fulfilling, doesn’t reach the profound experience that sex in the context of love can be…

… DJ talking about his art show opening… there has been a fair amount of journal space devoted to the making of the artwork he put in the show… it explores gay sexuality… American women seem to be most accepting… i guess we send our progressives overseas… or perhaps only the progressives would go to see such a show… maybe the times were somehow more accepting… less intense culture wars?… then, suddenly, this paragraph…

Intense work has obliterated the garden at Dungeness from my mind. I can live in a hotel room with a change of blue overalls, toothpaste, a razor, and this diary.¹

… as i record this quote, i think about the “what a little moonlight can do” photographs i am making… that they have me a little excited and seem a good new direction for the dark matter work…

… the garden at Prospect Cottage strikes me as a creative attempt of great hope but continuous struggle… DJ talks about the plants getting burned by the salt spray… more and more i think the plight of the beach roses on the island might be due to the tropical storm that passed directly over the island a couple of months ago… H was out here with M, i was back in Beacon caring for dogs and doing work on the house… strange, the two major storms that came through the Northeast, H was in them, i was not…

… i learn about Anatomy of Melancholy, by Burton… still considered a classic… available on Amazon… i wish to purchase, need to make a note that i am interested…

… dog restlessness upstairs… hoping it settles down, too early to take them out in my opinion…

… the restlessness continues… i go to release them, only Fiona comes out… i leash her up, take her out… we go round and round the yard, she does nothing, the crescent moon and lights from the house make navigation by sight possible… the clouds lit up with a bright white glow, i think about getting my camera, but don’t, we come back in and Chas starts whining… “fuck you Chas” i say… now he wants to come down… i leash him up and take both dogs out again… Chas pees, Fiona still nothing… both expect a treat when we return… i don’t give it to them… it is too early… i don’t like this as a habit which it will become if i reward them with a treat…

… Joris Ivens is mentioned, a Dutch documentary filmmaker i have never heard of… i struggle with making a note that i will remember to go back to as i want to know more about Joris Ivens… the easy way is to key word label it with “to watch, read, get”… on the iPhone, with keyboard enabled, this requires dumping out of the keyboard connection to bring up the tagging screen… it would be easier at home on the desktop…

… about the sixties…

Time has softened the decade — made it seem less complicated. The sixties opened the floodgates of consumption; and as more — much more, became available we lost a sense of the New. By the eighties the excitement of the New had disappeared.²

… i read about Pilip Core who wrote on photography, and the arts… i look him up… an American who lived most of his life in England… i add him to the list to get, read, watch…

… Tom of Finland is mentioned… i know about this because of my photography readings…

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, Documentary

… Björn Andrésen, chosen by Luchino Visconti to play Tadzio in his film adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice… at the film’s premier, Visconti declared him “the most beautiful boy in the world”… it looks like a sad an interesting story, read about it here then maybe watch the documentary when it comes out…

04 Poulomi Basu

… an article on Poulomi Basu, woman photographer from India… her body of work sits at the intersection of fine art, fiction, documentary… a conflict between government, capitalism, and natives… i wonder, will anything change because of the work?… or will it be enshrined in museum halls of the capitalist machine, the self critique that offers a veneer of respectability but alleviates no suffering because, after all, capitalism values extraction of minerals under the ground more than people living above that ground…

… i have seen this work a number of times on my Feedly feed… it is an exceptional series documenting a Chinese American family living in a tiny apartment on Ludlow Street… five people in 350 SF… i can’t imagine, the chaos, the constant being on top of one another, how do they do it?… we are told the marriage does not survive, hard to know if it’s the quarters or just a relationship that follows the course of half of all marriages in the US… i match that statistic, being on my second marriage… i wonder too, how do the children view growing up like this?… we can find some of their views at the virtual exhibit…

The Lams of Ludlow Street, Thomas Holton