all the trouble began when my high school english teacher, the gay one with peroxided hair who'd wrap himself in the window curtains and declaim romeo and james, told me, this boy has imagination. he made it seem like such a great thing. from then on i was hooked on writing, art, day-dreaming, and looking out the window, training for my future lookout job.
today, having almost piddled away sixty-years in the pursuit of creativity, i admit, i've no regrets. after all the adventures pursuing the life of a poet, i can sit quietly and calmly in my room, assessing the worth of my teacher's statement. okay, let me justify it, everything we have comes from somebody having thought it up. i do use the word 'thought' with a pinch of salt, considering i mean the floating memories, accidental collisions, and insufferable lessons in school brought about the fork, pornography, and the dentist's chair. who among the angels could have guessed?
we've been called the tool-making animal. i don't think i've ever created anything that useful in my life, except i've put the given tools like the pencil, photoshop, and the shoe to good use. true, dreaming up a poem is not like inventing the spoon, yet it stirs the up the muddy waters of the brain so gold can be detected in the pan. i'll say it again, without the imagination we'd be rabbits, hiding in holes, creating as many offspring as possible to defeat wolves and bad weather. using our cosmic quality, we've air-conditioning instead, which i can appreciate as the temperature climbs with the coming of summer.
i wonder if we shouldn't drop the saying, don't get carried away with confabulations from the ancient adages of wisdom? if little kids didn't dream and old folks didn't dodder, what would be left?
perhaps scenes like these from the fear of clowns: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/clowns
Memory is incomplete experience. j. krishnamurti
movies are my meditation, i have to admit it. ever since being a tiny tot in montana, allowed into the theater free at my leisure by a member of my father's congregation, i've gone to the flicks for education and relaxation. the lessons you learn at five years old not easily forgotten. even in berlin, learning german, if you didn't find me facing a stage full of actors, you could observe me watching flickering images on the screen.
true, it's not a sure cure for loneliness. my uncle bill, as he grew older, retired as a busboy, sat in the dark every night, stars and directors distant company. that said, a good story takes me out of myself, breaks up the logic of my thoughts. for a couple of hours i step out of the cage, i stop running in the spinning wheel, and dance freely across the world as a stage. and even after i come out, having identified with the hero, male or female, with a mightier tread.
i just read an article on the fear of clowns, so it's not all a bed of roses. they tend to be sad and creepy in ingmar bergmann films like the naked night (sawdust and tinsel), full of images which i will never forget, much as i would like to. THE CLOWN IN THE CLOSET, now there's a great title with multiple meanings. and as i've mentioned before, from an early age i imagined myself an incompetent comedian like buster keaton, or at my best a wily tramp like charlie chaplin. alas, keaton ended up busted and chaplin with a young wife and nine children exiled in switzerland.
yes, how we imagine ourselves is how it goes. as for the title of this little ramble, it stands for two movies i've seen in recent days. one called circo, a heart-breaking documentary about a mexican circus. the whole family, from little kids on up, work like slaves in service of an ideal, building up the acts till they can perform successfully in the big city, the ambition of three generations. unfortunately, the wife of the main guy hates seeing her children work so hard and not learning to read. she abandons the big top with three of her children. i wonder if the enterprise survived?
yes, the fear of being a clown quite real, though americans less afraid to make fools of themselves and that a main source of their freedom. last night, the movie salmon fishing in yemen, much more upbeat. despite a monumental defeat in their dream, the hero and girl get together, and fish survive in the desert. still, the hero had a terrible marriage and a mean, selfish, self-centered wife which he had to survive. their love couldn't thrive in the every day ambitions of middle-class life.
hope doesn't always spring eternal, yet these blossoms after march storms make april possible. a few photos: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/spring2
movies are my meditation, i have to admit it. ever since being a tiny tot in montana, allowed into the theater free at my leisure by a member of my father's congregation, i've gone to the flicks for education and relaxation. the lessons you learn at five years old not easily forgotten. even in berlin, learning german, if you didn't find me facing a stage full of actors, you could observe me watching flickering images on the screen.
true, it's not a sure cure for loneliness. my uncle bill, as he grew older, retired as a busboy, sat in the dark every night, stars and directors distant company. that said, a good story takes me out of myself, breaks up the logic of my thoughts. for a couple of hours i step out of the cage, i stop running in the spinning wheel, and dance freely across the world as a stage. and even after i come out, having identified with the hero, male or female, with a mightier tread.
i just read an article on the fear of clowns, so it's not all a bed of roses. they tend to be sad and creepy in ingmar bergmann films like the naked night (sawdust and tinsel), full of images which i will never forget, much as i would like to. THE CLOWN IN THE CLOSET, now there's a great title with multiple meanings. and as i've mentioned before, from an early age i imagined myself an incompetent comedian like buster keaton, or at my best a wily tramp like charlie chaplin. alas, keaton ended up busted and chaplin with a young wife and nine children exiled in switzerland.
yes, how we imagine ourselves is how it goes. as for the title of this little ramble, it stands for two movies i've seen in recent days. one called circo, a heart-breaking documentary about a mexican circus. the whole family, from little kids on up, work like slaves in service of an ideal, building up the acts till they can perform successfully in the big city, the ambition of three generations. unfortunately, the wife of the main guy hates seeing her children work so hard and not learning to read. she abandons the big top with three of her children. i wonder if the enterprise survived?
yes, the fear of being a clown quite real, though americans less afraid to make fools of themselves and that a main source of their freedom. last night, the movie salmon fishing in yemen, much more upbeat. despite a monumental defeat in their dream, the hero and girl get together, and fish survive in the desert. still, the hero had a terrible marriage and a mean, selfish, self-centered wife which he had to survive. their love couldn't thrive in the every day ambitions of middle-class life.
hope doesn't always spring eternal, yet these blossoms after march storms make april possible. a few photos: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/spring2
movies are my meditation, i have to admit it. ever since being a tiny tot in montana, allowed into the theater free at my leisure by a member of my father's congregation, i've gone to the flicks for education and relaxation. the lessons you learn at five years old not easily forgotten. even in berlin, learning german, if you didn't find me facing a stage full of actors, you could observe me watching flickering images on the screen.
true, it's not a sure cure for loneliness. my uncle bill, as he grew older, retired as a busboy, sat in the dark every night, stars and directors distant company. that said, a good story takes me out of myself, breaks up the logic of my thoughts. for a couple of hours i step out of the cage, i stop running in the spinning wheel, and dance freely across the world as a stage. and even after i come out, having identified with the hero, male or female, with a mightier tread.
i just read an article on the fear of clowns, so it's not all a bed of roses. they tend to be sad and creepy in ingmar bergmann films like the naked night (sawdust and tinsel), full of images which i will never forget, much as i would like to. THE CLOWN IN THE CLOSET, now there's a great title with multiple meanings. and as i've mentioned before, from an early age i imagined myself an incompetent comedian like buster keaton, or at my best a wily tramp like charlie chaplin. alas, keaton ended up busted and chaplin with a young wife and nine children exiled in switzerland.
yes, how we imagine ourselves is how it goes. as for the title of this little ramble, it stands for two movies i've seen in recent days. one called circo, a heart-breaking documentary about a mexican circus. the whole family, from little kids on up, work like slaves in service of an ideal, building up the acts till they can perform successfully in the big city, the ambition of three generations. unfortunately, the wife of the main guy hates seeing her children work so hard and not learning to read. she abandons the big top with three of her children. i wonder if the enterprise survived?
yes, the fear of being a clown quite real, though americans less afraid to make fools of themselves and that a main source of their freedom. last night, the movie salmon fishing in yemen, much more upbeat. despite a monumental defeat in their dream, the hero and girl get together, and fish survive in the desert. still, the hero had a terrible marriage and a mean, selfish, self-centered wife which he had to survive. their love couldn't thrive the every day ambitions of middle-class life.
hope doesn't always spring eternal, yet these blossoms after march storms make april possible. a few photos: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/spring2
this morning i asked myself, 'what makes a photograph iconic?' every poet, artist, writer would like to create at least one masterpiece. that's all it takes to put you in the history books and and have texting students pay attention when you go on college tours. sure, i'm driven by the zeitgeist to be productive. no question about that. living in the land of opportunity, i'm driven crazy by all the options. be an individual but fit in. could anything be more maddening?
like my comrades all over the earth, i have a digital camera. during the past eight years i've snapped a million photos every twelve months. five hundred galleries, 25,000 pics and not one to sum up the time in which we live. for the past three hours i've been scouring the web. what puts you in the magic gallery of immortals? first of all, damn near ninety-nine point nine famous photographs taken by professionals in the course of their work, the amateur be damned. why is this so unbearably true?
i can think of a few reasons. one, they tend to be in the right place at the right time due to the demands of the occupation. they may risk their lives and get shot up, actually die, not a chance i'm willing to take. two, they're masters of juxtaposition. love and death, the main topics of it all, get shown side by side. tears and courage both triumph in a collision of the individual and history. look at the most heartbreaking picture ever taken:
though it certainly has to compete with the minamata image of w. eugene smith.
speaking of risking everything, smith nearly beaten to death by the polluting company goons after he'd been warned to abandon the project.
the worst and the best of humanity, the extremes meeting or shown separately, always implied by the great photo. a good example the puddle-jumper of henri cartier-bresson. yes, he might drown. and look at the poster behind him, the dancer in her heavenly world.
and what's interesting, the most professional of professionals allowed (usually) one such overwhelmingly unforgettable instance, the fraction of a second when the moment meets time and betokens eternity. here's my gallery of the usual suspects. http://www.pbase.com/wwp/iconic
this morning i asked myself, 'what makes a photograph iconic?' every poet, artist, writer would like to create at least one masterpiece. that's all it takes to put you in the history books and and have texting students pay attention when you go on college tours. sure, i'm driven by the zeitgeist to be productive. no question about that. living in the land of opportunity, i've driven crazy by all the options. be an individual but fit in. could anything be more maddening?
like my comrades all over the earth, i have a digital camera. during the past eight years i've snapped a million photos every twelve months. five hundred galleries, 25,000 pics and not one to sum up the time in which we live. for the past three hours i've been scouring the web. what puts you in the magic gallery of immortals? first of all, damn near ninety-nine point nine famous photographs taken by professionals in the course of their work, the amateur be damned. why is this so unbearably true?
i can think of a few reasons. one, they tend to be in the right place at the right time due to the demands of the occupation. they may risk their lives and get shot up, actually die, not a chance i'm willing to take. two, they're masters of juxtaposition. love and death, the main topics of it all, get shown side by side. tears and courage both triumph in a collision of the individual and history. look at the most heartbreaking picture ever taken:
though it certainly has to compete with the minamata image of w. eugene smith.
speaking of risking everything, smith nearly beaten to death by the polluting company goons after he'd been warned to abandon the project.
the worst and the best of humanity, the extremes meeting or shown separately, always implied by the great photo. a good example the puddle-jumper of henri cartier-bresson. yes, he might drown. and look at the poster behind him, the dancer in her heavenly world.
and what's interesting, the most professional of professionals allowed (usually) one such overwhelmingly unforgettable instance, the fraction of a second when the moment meets time and betokens eternity. here's my gallery of the usual suspects. http://www.pbase.com/wwp/iconic
listen, i'm the first person to guffaw when a famous writer on a talk-show wails, 'it's so difficult!' hey, come on, i've watched you crying all the way to the bank. can it really be that hard, putting one word in front of another? after all, most creative writing mirrors society. prophecy? well that's best left to practical people and scientists. no forecast of the future has ever proven true. at least, not in it's details.
all this being said, for most of us writing a real chore. mostly, i suppose, due to making us think. we enter into the world of dualisms. light versus dark, good versus evil, male versus female. the list is endless. and once engulfed by opposites, we be begin to suffer shades of grey. 'it's almost an egg, but it might be a carrot.' all kinds of unanswerable questions arise. not only that, describing a state of mind, an event, everything becomes a question of opinion. and then we suffer the buddhist hell of feeling everything an illusion.
different kinds of writing, does it make a difference? once i met alex haley, renowned author of the diary of Malcolm X and roots. he'd learned his craft in the coast guard, writing love-letters for the other sailors. '200 a week' he said. that's some school for a scribe! does it come naturally to anybody? 19th century letter-writers incredibly phrase-worthy. the education of those so privileged must have been grounded in useful rules, like setting up a joke: don't let the laughs be big on the setup, or in the second stage of suspense, save most of it for the surprise, THE GUFFAW, if you like.
has the internet and texting made a dent? people seem less afraid to make mistakes. like with digital cameras, everyone's been freed to be an artist. gawd, how i cringe every time i hear anybody can be an artist. we might as well close the museums now. as for great literature, we'll have to be satisfied with blogs, like this one. personal revelation, what else is left? everyone may have a story - and be the dullest bore telling it.
back to photography and visual storytelling. tried it a couple of times this week with my iphone. a new tool inspires me, even if it leads to my digging my own grave. check these out:
http://www.pbase.com/wwp/east12 and http://www.pbase.com/wwp/def
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