Highly recommend this movie… gets off to a slow and annoying start but delivers down the road. A little violent but not too bad and darkly funny.
What Stood Out, Week 32
In the world of wordsmithing:
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I have been reading Etel Adnan’s Sea and Fog a few pages at a time. That’s how it is with poetry. I need to go low and slow. As if I am smoking a brisket, but poetically. This take on Photography stood out to me:
Photography is akin to medieval thinking: it values the instant, is based on the microcosm, the atom which mirrors the whole, the DNA which identifies. To see is to arrest the world, to save it from submersion.
Etel Adnan, Sea and Fog
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I learned about Eve Babitz from this article in The Atlantic.
Eve Babitz was one of the truly original writers of 20th-century Los Angeles: essayist, memoirist, novelist, groupie, feminist, canny ingenue.
Babitz was four inches short of that 5 foot 11, but she had other attributes that made her presence, and her femininity, impossible to ignore. Her most explicit attempt to address this challenge was “My Life in a 36DD Bra, or, the All-American Obsession,” a piece she wrote for Ms. in April 1976.
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And there was this interview with [Lisa Taddeo on Death, Desire and Her “Super Dark” View of the World](https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/14293/lisa-taddeo-on-her-short-story-collection-ghost-lover?utm_source=Link&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=RSSFeed&utm_term=lisa-taddeo-on-death-desire-and-her-super-dark-view-of-the-world “Lisa Taddeo on Death, Desire and Her “Super Dark” View of the World”) in AnOther Magazine.
Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women (2019) was a work of devastating brilliance, flooring readers with its illuminating investigation of female desire. She spent eight years creating this compelling feat of literary reportage (which is currently in production as a new television series starring Shailene Woodley as the author). Immersing herself in the stories of her three subjects, Sloane, Lina, and Maggie, Taddeo moved cross-country multiple times, bearing witness to these women’s lives as they unfolded, exhaustively recording their testimony and speaking to those closest to the book’s trio of central figures. What emerged was a complex, candid, and deeply compassionate portrait of labyrinthine female sexuality.
I purchased Three Women for Kindle. Anything to do with feminine sexuality attracts me. I expect to be titillated by it but also hope to be educated by it.
In the world of film:
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A review of ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’
It’s just that modern competition revolves around the ability to claim persecution: In a land of modern strivers granted wealth and power the likes of which the world has never seen, she who can lay claim to the greatest number of handicaps and the lowest number of privileges is Queen Victim.
A competition based on the greatest number of handicaps and least number of privileges strikes me as an apt metaphor for the present moment in America in lots of ways.
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Why Japanese Director Kinuyo Tanaka’s Films Are Criminally Overlooked
Kinuyo Tanaka: A Life in Film, it explores the outstanding works of one of the country’s first-ever female auteurs – whose incredible and under-seen films have been newly restored in 4K. A screen icon in her own right (highlights from her incredible acting career, including collaborations with nearly all of the aforementioned filmmaking giants, are to be shown in September), Tanaka defied the male gatekeepers of the industry to carve out her own career behind the camera. She thrived in the process, delivering works that matched those of her male counterparts and often surpassed them.
Though her directing career was short (Tanaka completed six films in nine years in total), the stories she told were vital tales of female agency and desire that were essential to the cinematic development of one of the world’s great filmmaking nations.
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Lena Dunham’s new film, Sharp Stick, seems like a must see to me, but then I am easily sold by the promise of sex on the screen. Still, this review in Hyperallergic and the fact that its Dunham, promises humor and intelligence in addressing the subject of a young woman setting out to loose her virginity.
In the World of my daily walks:
Leaf chatter as a breeze moves through the trees. Crickets. Cicadas.
In the world of art:
I liked Lucy Johnson’s - Reality Breakdown photography series.
Lucy Johnson (b.1986) is a UK artist who works in sound and visual art. Her work explores themes of the sublime, the mundane and the absurd in the human experience. She has self published two photo zines with imprint Pearl Press and her sound work has featured in The Wire, NTS Radio, Tusk Festival, Fact Magazine and Index Festival (Yorkshire Sculpture International). Alongside soundtracking her own visual art, she collaborates with artists of different disciplines in creating audio visual projects, some of which appear on ‘Soundtracks Vol.1’, released by Opal Tapes in 2020.
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A Show Traces Philip Guston’s Impact on Contemporary Artists - I have long been a fan.
A Thing for the Mind at commercial gallery Timothy Taylor takes an altogether more creative approach to demonstrating influence, one informed less by strict historical evidence than by the curator’s creative interpretation based on painterly themes and similarities.
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Two Santa Monica Artists Create a Legacy Through Potlucks
The backyard potlucks followed a consistent formula that worked because so many people stepped up to contribute and help out. Around 6pm on a Saturday night, a long table filled up with potluck delicacies — both store bought and homemade — while a drink table was stocked with wine and beer. Jon and his tech crew would set up for the artist slideshow as Kim greeted visitors in her studio at the back of the house.
It’s always about connecting with other people. When we connect, when we talk face to face, that makes a difference.
In the world of human rights:
- Telling the Devastating Stories of Pre-Abortion Ireland(https://lithub.com/telling-the-devastating-stories-of-pre-abortion-ireland/)
Decades on from the writing of Irish laws that caused the death and enslavement of women, the deaths and abduction of their babies, and the decimation of their families and communities, we are seeing similar laws being rewritten in America—the land of the free and a country that was once a sanctuary for Irish women fleeing shame and judgment in their country. And it’s slowly dawning on us that history can repeat itself if we let it. It’s down to us to tell the stories that help us to move forward, not back.
** In the world of politics:**
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News of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago of course stands out. Of particular interest to me is this speculative line Heather Cox Richardson draws to Saudi Arabia in her August 11 Post.
… what springs to mind for me is the plan pushed by Trump’s first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and fundraiser and campaign advisor Tom Barrack, to transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.
It seems clear that items of significant national security import were illegally removed from Washington and brought to Mar-a-Lago. We don’t know why or by whom, but the presumption is 45. We know that 45 is venal so the suspicion is that the materials were to be used for profit. Or perhaps have been. There appears to have been nuclear secrets among the materials.
I detest the very idea of 45. That so many embrace him unquestioningly is baffling and frightening to me.
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I whole heartedly agree with this article in The Dispatch on Liz Cheney’s integrity. She is a shining example of politics with integrity. If 45 is brought down and the anti-democratic forces in this country are turned back, it will be because of her. She has changed my idea of what to look for in a politician. Integrity first, then policy. Polling makes it clear she will not be nominated by the Republican Party in Wyoming to her seat in congress. That is sad. What is it about humanity that values loyalty over integrity? I’ll take Liz Cheney any day. If she runs for president I may well vote for her because I see her as the sanest way out of the mess we are in.
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Tilting Our Politics Back Toward Democracy
It seemed important to quote extensively from this article in The Bulwark:
These constant struggles over eligibility and access are part of our constitutional birthright. The beauty in the story of America is not found in an uncritical adherence to the Founders’ design but, rather, in the struggle—in various groups’ demand, often resisted by others, that our democracy be more participatory and inclusive. For those who love liberal democracy, the one thing worse than letting vox-pop stars (election deniers, for example) touch our democracy is cutting off their access to it.
Such unchecked anti-democratic actions are made possible by the toxic partisanship driving the country apart—today’s version of the factions about which James Madison warned in Federalist No. 10. More than half of adults view other Americans as the biggest threat to their way of life. Approximately half of Democrats and Republicans view the other as immoral, and a recent study shows partisans view their political opponents as more unintelligent than immoral, more “stupid than evil” as it were. These views make it easier for people to excuse the illiberal undertakings of elected officials because such activities are deemed necessary to defeat the existential threat presented by the other side.
In contrast to this understanding of our political history as a series of deviations from a model republic—an understanding hardly convincing for the 90-plus percent of us who would not have been permitted to vote at the time the Constitution was first implemented—there is the other understanding I described earlier, which sees our political history as a never-ending struggle over eligibility and access. This alternative understanding makes it possible to look at our system of government with clear eyes to assess whether it has tilted too far toward democracy (toward becoming a tyranny of the majority) or too far away from it (toward becoming a tyranny of the minority or of minorities). Each direction carries risks.
But pulling off a republican democracy that puts the demos in the driver’s seat will require trust and investment in the people—not an easy undertaking given the foundation of our democratic culture. But failing to do so will ensure we get more of the type of representatives Madison warned us about in Federalist No. 10: “Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, who may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.”
We seem to be squarely in that place now. And the election deniers winning Republican primaries and state election offices with the intent of undermining our democracy out of self-interest may soon put the ridiculousness of the vox pops to shame.
I struggle to resist the thought that people on the far right are “more stupid than evil.” I don’t always succeed. My assessment of the situation is that they are afraid of the brave new world that could be. The Multiarchy. They loose some privileges in such a world. It’s existential. It’s sad. I hope we can come back from the brink of civil war and make constructive choices. I have good and bad days on this. Like Democracy itself in the present moment.
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In other 45 related news, this observation from Heather Cox Richardson:
It is an astonishing thing to see that a former president, the person who was responsible for faithfully executing the laws of our nation, has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Referring to his deposition in New York State this past week.
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How Trump’s top general worried the Hitler-curious president was seeking “a Reichstag moment."
The President’s loud complaint to John Kelly one day was typical: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”
“Which generals?” Kelly asked.
“The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded.
“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said.
But, of course, Trump did not know that. “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the President replied. In his version of history, the generals of the Third Reich had been completely subservient to Hitler; this was the model he wanted for his military. Kelly told Trump that there were no such American generals, but the President was determined to test the proposition.
I remember worrying at the time that 45 would succeed in corrupting the military. It seems my worries were warranted, but then i knew that.
I think this is a good place to stop.
July 24, 2022
… 231.2 lbs…
… Heather Cox Richardson about the accomplishments of the administration, which are considerable… and yet, the people are not happy and Republicans may succeed in steering us to a one party state…
Love or hate what Biden has done, he has managed to pull a wide range of countries together to stand against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian attack in Ukraine, and he has managed to get through a terribly divided Congress laws to make the lives of the majority better, even while Republicans are rejecting the idea that the government should reflect the will of the majority. That is no small feat.
Whether it will be enough to prove that democracy is still a viable form of government is up to us.1
… i believe in the messy multiarchy… i hope more people can look at what is going on and support democracy… i am pessimistic about that…
… last night we watched Blue Bayou, a movie centered on the deportation of a Korean American who was adopted but for whom the appropriate paperwork had never been completed… apparently there are 25K to 50K adoptees from foreign countries that have the same problem… how is it possible that there isn’t some kind of understanding in the system that it isn’t the adoptee’s fault that the paperwork was not done or done properly?… how are we so tied to the rules that we can’t see our way to making an exception for this class?… how are we sending people back to countries they have never known and can’t even speak the language?… i read the wikipedia write up on the movie and learn that a law passed in 2000 made many in this legalization limbo citizens, it did not cover those 18 and older at the time…
… i read about bird flu killing tens of thousands of seabirds… i wonder if this is something related to climate change… i read the article to the end… it’s not… i remember B warning us that the flu was going around and to mask and glove up when we cared for the chickens this past winter… i wonder about the meat birds coming… tomorrow i think…
… because we have at least one in town, this article on Little Libraries caught my attention… the trend started in Wisconsin as a memorial to the mother of Todd Bol, who was a schoolteacher…
… monkeypox continues to grow as an issue around the globe… i feel like i am reading too much about this new disease of concern… i have read it is only spread through direct contact… is that changing?…
… an article on Tony Wang in Ain’t Bad… i almost don’t click on it, but then do… wait… i know this guy’s work!… he showed at the last Salon… he showed the very work published in the article… he was testing the sequencing… way to go Tony… hope we see you again!…
… Kitchen and Coffee after a walk down Main Street… not many pictures… not much that inspired an effort… it’s Sunday so i treat myself to hot chocolate… it is a spiritual experience… i really have to try making it at home…
… published yesterday’s notes… getting ready to publish yesterday’s group of photos… the things i look at… pay attention to… Gilbert O’Sullivan, _Alone Again (Naturally)_ playing on the sound system…
… haven’t heard that song in a long time…
… signs of Beacon Open Studios around town… wanted to go to some of the studios but the heat dampened my enthusiasm… lots of evidence of people in town… lots of cars parked on streets adjacent to Main Street, where they aren’t during the week… not as many people on the street as there are when the weather is better…
… it’s no longer projected to be 100 today… top out at 96 or 97… cooler tomorrow but more 90 degree weather heading our way next week…
… some more Etel Adnan…
Within seconds, X rays and gamma rays have hit us at light speed. A cloud of nuclear particles at 5 million miles an hour engulfs everybody’s brain. We are monitoring the universe in real time.2
… i read from dot to dot… making my way slowly through the book… usually, there is a passage that jumps out… today it was the above… the idea of monitoring the universe in real time… do we have nuclear particle receptors and don’t know it?… will we one day figure out how to tap into them?… will our minds then expand to be the universe?… will we loose our selves when this happens?… will it be hive mind?… i think about how, in my society, everything is geared towards being the unique, outstanding (good or bad) individual… we are to brand ourselves… make ourselves into a recognized and marketable quantity… is this the right way to think about being?… should we, instead, enjoy our selfness quietly… i oscillate on this… being part of the fabric, undistinguished, doesn’t bring resources… it does bring community?…
… just now i am thinking about how the patriarchal Oligarchs want to remake American society… i hope we can stop them…
… paid the bills…
… edited this morning’s pictures…
… bought the makings of ratatouille at the farmers market… especially wonderful dish in the summer with fresh vegetables… i will cook it on the Green Egg with the hope that it will develop a smokey flavor on top of the oven caramelized flavors this recipe develops… i post my intentions to Micro.blog and Facebook…
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Sea and Fog, Etel Adnan ↩︎
July 23, 2022
…232.2 lbs…
… the dogs get me up at 3:30 AM… wanted to stay in bed till 4 but… Fiona pacing the room… i think an animal was passing through our neighbor’s yard… the other day we saw a skunk family pass through… we seem to finally have secured the perimeter of our fence so Fiona isn’t getting out and animals aren’t getting in… except for squirrels…
… H has become determined to attract humming birds to the yard… we’ve had many sightings of them this year… we have flowers in the garden they are attracted to… she wants them to come to the feeders… so far, not much activity there… we have many feeders now… she is trying to find the perfect one… i hope they come to her feeders…
… we made pizza on the green egg last night… tending a fire more bearable than i would have thought in this heat… today and tomorrow are the peak of the heat wave… high 90’s… 100 predicted for tomorrow…
… the mural, “Queens is the Future,” created by Eve Biddle and Joshua Frankel…
… an article about Abby Manzella, a micro fiction writer and host of Micro, a podcast… her 400 word piece, Lepidoptera, mentioned… a story about a little girl in the midst of a pandemic… she wakes up with butterfly wings one day… a paragraph about how she writes into her phone at night to get ideas off her mind… how this one emerged almost fully formed… i think, yes, i write into my phone… i have been trying to write more… this will be inspiration…
… this from Maria Popova in the Marginalian this morning…
By the time we can even begin answering for ourselves the question of whether or not is worth living, myriad things have been answered for us by the fundamental forces that have conspired into the confluence of chance that is our self. None of us choose the bodies or brains or neurochemistries we are born with, the time and place we are deposited into, the parents we are raised by, the culture we are cultured in. Any sense of choice we might have is already saturated with these chance inheritances and is therefore, as James Baldwin so astutely observed, part illusion and part vanity.1
… the post is about Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem, To The Young Who Want To Die… wait another day… see what’s coming around the corner… wait another day…
… i, myself, have never been suicidal… depression is not frequent with me and never very deep… i once played with suicide, as a kid, in the basement of my parents home… i made a noose… attached it to the steel beam supporting the joists of the house and carefully lowered myself to feel the noose tighten around my neck… i had no intention of swinging from the beam… i only wanted to know what it felt like… when i think back on it, i think… what if i had slipped and hung myself… the world would have thought i was sad… there would have been no clue as to why… i would have seemed a generally happy boy… i don’t think my troubles with my father had started by then, beyond his being a strict disciplinarian… there is a short story in this… i should try to write it… something involving Schrodinger’s cat… am i alive or dead?…
… an article in Mother Jones about an article in Axios that H told me about yesterday… it’s about how the MAGA group plan to remake government when they get in office… fill it with cronies… and then leave the subsequent administration with the choice of doing their own cronies make over or returning to the bureaucratic state of olden times… i think, what makes them think there will be another administration if that plan is successfully carried out?… this would be the mostly white patriarchy taking over and never letting go… this would be the end of the multiarchy… oh god, why must we contend with this shit?… 45 must never be responsible for anything in government again…
… an article about Pelosi’s planned trip to Taiwan and China’s threat to retaliate “forcefully.”… there seem to be so many ways the world could go sideways right now…
… another review of Nope further reinforces that i want to see it… H feels the same way…
… Ukraine is winning… i read the article… i nod to its arguments… it lightens my mood a bit, but, i wonder, i still don’t see the end game where Putin retreats with tail between legs… another one that could easily go sideways…
… a Jonathan Blaustein review of the photobook Kyanite Miners… i don’t share his opinion of the book… it’s slick, corporate, meant to promote the mining company… it’s competent… i don’t think it is pushing any boundaries…
… Kitchen and Coffee… the handsome bleach blond dude barista… he is less personable than the women… i wonder how women customers respond to his handsomeness?… he reminds me of a young Paul Hollywood…
… as i walk down Main Street i am thinking about writing a short story about a boy toying with a noose… i am thinking that i will write multiple stories within a story, one where the boy toys with the noose, satisfies his curiosity and then takes the noose apart and goes on with his life… another in which he slips and accidentally hangs himself… others in which various plausible scenarios play out, including that he wishes to die, is not only playing with the idea of death… could be a very interesting story…
… i am liking my return to routine and structured workflow… for so many weeks things were moving all about… i was making pictures, writing, but not in the routine and rhythmic way i am now… i have started posting titled journal entries on a daily basis… each day i publish the previous day’s entry… they are Notes On Attention Paid… each day i am posting a selection of photographs taken that day… they are also Notes On Attention Paid… it’s that simple…
… on the way here, a bunch of male sexual performance enhancement packaging on the ground… i photograph all of them… one has the words “rock hard” on it… i don’t know, sounds painful to me… anyway, i am thinking today’s image post will include a number of them, may be only them…
The starting point of infinity is always at the center, where mind resides. Behind an image there’s an image. Nothingness is Being’s foundation, put on stage by poetry, which makes the erotic and the intellect meet. It’s not life, it’s alive.2
July 21, 2022
… 222.8 lbs…
… been walking more the past couple of days, in the morning… no afternoon labor… snacking more?… eating more?… definitely drinking more… was doing better with shorter, more contemplative walks, but that was coupled with afternoon labor…
… i am determined to loose some weight…
… HCR depressing this AM, for its discussion of climate change and the inability of the US to get its act together… Republicans are uniformly against any legislation that promotes a fossil fuel free future, as is Joe Manchin, who claims fighting inflation now is more important than fighting climate change… inflation is a problem that will only get worse as climate change continues to unfold… fighting it is fighting inflation…
… i read a recipe for “The Ultimate Focaccia” by Paul Hollywood, of the Great British Baking Show… i resolve to make it… i love to cook… and as Hollywood suggests:
Baking is all about sharing. Even after more than three decades in many different professional roles, nothing beats making something for someone else and seeing their eyes light up when they taste it.
… i am hoping to add focaccia to my repertoire…
… an article entitled Sam Gregg’s Captivating Portraits Capture the “Humanity” of Naples… i have a look and think he’s made them look rather disappointed with life… nobody smiles… everyone looks at you as if they are suspicious of you… photographs of details of the environment seem uninspired… at the beginning of the article he mentions how friendly they are… it’s not at all evidenced in the photographs…
… i am reminded my own photography is moving forward again… i have established a new work flow… i have begun building the weekly edit portfolios again, working in the present and backwards a little at a time…
… an article, How Joel Meyerowitz Became a Pioneer of Colour Photography… ah!, a modern master, I will like his work better… and i do, but don’t see pictures i never would have thought to make, except one of a young woman about to bite into a strawberry… i don’t photography people… he manages sensuality very effectively with the soft focus and the trope of a strawberry… i see a photography that comes from the last century… still great photography but one thinks the world has moved on…
It seems impossible to imagine there was ever a time when colour photography was not regarded as an art form. But for decades, the art world dismissed colour as commercial at best, closing ranks and excluding groundbreaking photographers for years. “When I first started shooting I shot in colour,” Meyerowitz says. “A year later, I started shooting in black and white because I couldn’t print colour in 1962. I only had slides to show people and I noticed they didn’t look at them very long. They treated them like everybody’s travel photos.”
… as i read the article i begin to see the art of the photograph of the young woman… made in low light with a relatively slow exposure… she can’t help but move a little and this is what softens her image…
… the article is promotional for Meyerowitz’s new exhibition, Between the Dog and the Wolf
… Anna Leigh Clem, i thought, i know this photographer, she used to come to salon in Woodstock… i look through the work and i believe it has evolved as it is more comprehensible as a story than it was, at least in this selection of images…
… bravo Anna!…
… another article on Great Women Artists, a survey of women painters over 500 years… i have put it on my list at Amazon… liked this painting by Hayv Kahraman…
… a leisurely walk down Main Street leaves me sweaty… the day will be hot… but then i knew that…
… continuing to think about the work of Anna Clem and about reaching out to her, letting her know i enjoyed the Booooooom! post…
… on the way out the door, i photograph tomatoes and think it will be a good picture… in the front there is a Carolina Swallowtail butterfly… it comes closer to work the flowers in front of me… i photograph it… i think these photos will be good too…
… loud talking barista is here this morning… i order decaf with a little agave in it… she squeezes out some agave onto a spoon and stirs it into my coffee… i think that is nice… she is wearing corduroy shorts that end just above her knees… they are green… she has a blue t-shirt… smallish breasts, a bit of a tummy and generous hips… if i make her sound fat, she is not… she could be one day, but not now… i notice one tattoo on her right upper arm… she is pierced through her right eyebrow…
… there was no coffee to set up for H… have to bring some home with me… looking at the coffees here there doesn’t seem enough information to help me make a decision on any of the packages… they are all only 12 ounces too, which annoys me…
… an older gentleman in a British golf cap walks down the aisle, sets his bag and a folder of documents down at a table… he returns up front to get whatever he will get…
… two women walk from the back to the front… they are similar in stature and wear identically colored, though not identical, blouse/shirts… are they a couple?…
… this from Sea and Fog, Etel Adnan…
The divine is not spatial but needs space, is not material but needs matter, is not human but needs consciousness, is not a work of beauty but needs the sea’s power of attraction.
… i think about this… divine attracts consciousness with the power of the sea’s liquid material attraction… without consciousness, is there any divine?… but then there is the pansychic idea that everything has awareness… material at its most basic level has awareness, even if attraction to that which attracts it and in turn is attracted… this is the base level of awareness… to know something is adjacent…
… out of this i think about the rock on Block Island… i am aware of it… is it aware of me?… to the extent that we are bodies with mass and therefore gravitational attraction… we warp the space around us and between us… at least that is how i understand it…
… i publish yesterday’s journal entry and photographs and walk… i included a map… have forgotten to turn on the map this morning… i need to do a routine that asks me to turn it on and off as i leave and return to the house…
… after editing today’s photos… also some photos from previous weeks… working on getting caught up… making progress… deciding that iPhone photos are difficult to do as color… wondering if i need to try to do them in the apple photo app… they always seem to look better in black and white, at least as developed in Lightroom…
Heather Cox Richardson, July 20, 2022
Paul Hollywood: How to Make the Ultimate Focaccia
Sam Gregg’s Captivating Portraits Capture the “Humanity” of Naples
Tha apple install time calculation must operate in a parallel universe moving near the speed of light…
The Best Photobooks from Les Recontres d Arles, 2022
Dayanita Singh: “a book is a conversation with a stranger in the future.”
