PaleInk

I love Paris in the springtime

2011-05-05T00:00:00.002-05:00

Some surprises are sweeter than others and this one is pure delight. Delight like plum tart with crème fraiche. And champagne. I am more than silly happy about this.

For the last couple weeks, I've been engaged in a reluctant winding down from film fest exhilaration. The circuit is ending. The schedule is slowing. I'm seeing the posters — the new crop of posters for a new series of films. But now we have another screening of Florian Riegel's documentary HOLDING STILL in a place no less glorious than Paris. In an understatement, my spirits are buoyed.

I was in Paris a very long time ago. I camped inside the city, not far from the last Métro, when camping was crude and campers sparse, and I was near a river loaded with noisy construction equipment and I didn't care. It beat a hotel. I froze. I wore every layer of clothing I had, which wasn't much. The weather shouldn't have been more than chilly. It was freezing. My feet decided to itch maddeningly at night. I did not sleep. I rode the avenues on the back of a motorcycle with a Brit nicknamed Curly in the company of a guy whose moniker (sobriquet, eh?) was Hassle Bebop. My husband was WizKid during those few magical days. Hassle and Curly were returning to London after a sojourn in Spain setting up sound for a rock concert in a cave. All together, we checked out Curly's exhibit in a Parisian gallery. The precise point of the visit was viewing a manquette of an inflatable dwelling. Inflate a room: Enter. Exit: deflate the room. This was an energy conserving home and it was Curly's design. Curly was ahead of his time and brilliant and out of his mind. We were kids then and everything was possible. I recall also high ceilings from which spun an installation of harlequin metal circus performers. I saved those photos. Somewhere. We made forays throughout the city and shot and lost rolls of precious film. On our last night together, over a tiny butane grill, I seared at least four lamb chops, boiled new potatoes, and tumbled Brussels sprouts in a beurre noisette and served it all to these beautiful, creative, engaging, generous, unshaven, hippie artist/musician/bikers. They thanked me that fourth night for the best meal they ate in that fine city. High praise indeed! I remember it well. You cannot forget what you ate in Paris.

Now HOLDING STILL is in competition again at FranceDoc and screens on Saturday, May 7, 6:00 PM, in the Key Cinema and Wednesday, May 4, 12:00 noon at l' university Paris 8.

If you are in Paris, your schedule is:

Samedi 7 mai à 18h au Cinéma La Clef
Mercredi 4 mai à 12h à l'université Paris 8

Again we have a super fantastic poster to grab. Here's the top. Get it!

While I'm crowing, I'd like to thank David Gerber and Herbie Cassavetes for the memories, memories of Paris, great food and wine, lots of pot, conversation, debate, a zippiest and harrowing ride, late nights, new found friendship, and nicknames. I forget what mine was.

I give you Hassle Bebop (l), Curly (right), moi (centre) et Paris —

And I thank you for the ride of a lifetime, Florian Riegel.

Now, go see HOLDING STILL in Paris! I would.

florian riegel. HOLDING STILL

2010-11-24T13:48:00.002-06:00

The film festival circuit 2010 winds down and I get another sweet surprise grazie al Festival dei Popoli, Florence, Italy.

[Suggestion: Pop this out and watch full screen. I sure did]

As Banshee would write: ARMFLAIL

I don't like upper case | Ireland, y'all?

2010-11-08T01:14:00.003-06:00

All along I've been writing about "Holding Still" or 'Holding Still' (see the discrete difference, yes?) (single quotes, better than double) because I'm reluctant to use upper case for more than two letters in a row, such as in state abbreviations (recent notables: AK and AZ. AAAK!) and even then, they're rather uncomfortable for me. But I'm using upper case to be proper.

At any rate, Florian Riegel's documentary film HOLDING STILL is screening at the 55th Corona Cork Film Festival on Tue 09 Nov | 11:30am | Cork Opera House.

Think about it: a week long festival of 300 films from more than 30 countries. Big films, independent films, international documentaries and short films. That's a lot of silver screen, people.

OK, the Cork Opera House. From Cork Heritage Open Day, comes an exceedingly cool photo... I'm borrowing it, please/thank you, because it's the shot I'd take if only I could:

See! Fantastic architecture and not at all the ancient stone edifice you expected. Yup, I expected that also. There is a wonderful history of the Opera House at the site.

And, hey, I am Irish! Irish enough. Enough to wish I were there (sad that I'm not), at the festival, watching with a slew of other attendees. There's a trailer for HOLDING STILL at the bottom of this page. Go ahead. Scroll down and take a peek.

You could go to Ireland. Or you might actually be there already. And if you happened to snap a photo of a certain film up on that screen, you might shoot me a copy. Now that would be quite wonderful.

So go there. Quick.

HOLDING STILL screens also as part of This is our World on Sun 14 Nov | 12:00pm | Gate Cinema. You have time to get there!

Travel, or being here and there at the same time

2010-10-13T01:47:00.002-05:00

A friend wrote to me in email:

It's sort of amazing how you're traveling the world and people are looking at you—your life—on nearly a nightly basis, don't you think?

I realize I'd not been thinking. Not like that. And this friend is unique. He thinks in that way for me and asks the salient questions.

So, yes, it is quite amazing that I'm traveling in this way. Thank you for asking.

When you truly realize that this life and living is an
absurdity, then you join in the dance. You take part in
this absurdity. The body-mind organism continues to live
in the world, but without any sense of personal doership.

— Ramesh S. Balsekar

To be alive, to be able to see, to walk--it's all a miracle.
— Arthur Rubinstein

I remain wide-eyed and dumbfounded about all this accidental wandering. And a whole lot in awe.

HOLDING STILL, a film by Florian Riegel, is being screened at Duisburger Filmwoche 34 on November 3. It appears I'm going to be traveling again.

Die Duisburger Filmwoche ist das Festival des deutschsprachigen Dokumentarfilms. The Duisburg Film Week is the festival of the German documentary film.

DOKUFEST 2010 KOSOVO has begun!

2010-08-02T03:06:00.003-05:00

What are we doing here this week when we could be in Prizren, Kosovo, at the film festival, playing? What I've read about this relatively young but established venue is that it's fun, delicious, rollicking fun.

Major content is being added to the DOKUFEST 2010 website daily. 'Holding Still' directed by Florian Riegel, with photography by Luciano Cervio, and produced by Ute Dilger, is screening on August 5 (there's still time to get there) and is in competition.

Frankly, I'm rather wild about the idea of Kosovo, so indulge me. This all seems quite the adventure. I mean, Kosovo! I'm posting a screen grab of a bit of the schedule way below. Check here for the complete online listing.

I've linked to fantastic sites and blogs in the sidebar on the right. Please check them out.

I am working with photography. I say this looking at +/- 4,000 new images since I've last posted a photo. We've been busy and distracted on the Gulf Coast, and it's time to be happily productive again. In that spirit, I'm posting provisional, in-progress photos. We're deep into summertime. Kids are in the water, both saline and chlorinated; a friend brings me snapping juicy plums; gulls dive in for fish or crabs or toes. And it's hot. So hot.

So little of what could happen does happen. — Salvador Dalí

But anything could happen. Someone could make the loveliest, most improbable film and surprise you forever. Things happen. What is least likely to happen, sometimes does.

So do something you might not ordinarily do. Something even small. Then hold still.

And.....

Go. Go. Go!

I'm late! I'm late! I'm STILL HERE at Silverdocs

2010-06-23T01:00:00.000-05:00

Silverdocs, Silver Spring, Md. on Wednesday, June 23 and Thursday, June 24 — midday.

Calendar Shorts Program 2: STILL HERE and GO if you live in NYC or DC! It's hot and humid or rainy or too sunny or you just need a break, and these are some dynamite documentaries. Five of them, including Florian Riegel's 'Holding Still.' Remember documentaries? You love them. You know you do. Sweet bites of nectar laden fruit. The glow on the moonstone. Haiku, plural. Halos of flickering cinema. Distillations. And you may be surprised if you attend. Isn't that almost too much?

Weezer has a cameo. You don't want to miss her.

I would tell Roger Ebert if I were bold or brave. I'm not. But, read this Ebert piece and this. You'll love him, too.

'Holding Still' at Silverdocs

2010-06-10T02:12:00.005-05:00

"Imagine if the last 20 years of your life were lived entirely in one room, yet you have the ability to see and photograph the world outside. This is the story of Janis, a woman whose artistic voice is remarkably unconstrained by physical obstacles or tragedies in her past. "

Imagine me ecstatic. Florian Riegel's film was chosen to screen at SILVERDOCS in SHORTS PROGRAM 2: STILL HERE on June 23 at 10:00 PM, AFI Silver Theater 2, and June 24 at 12:00 PM, AFI Silver Theater 1.

I remember when we took this photo. It was a year the cicadas appeared. We had spent that sun dappled afternoon with the new camera making time-delay photos of ourselves at the weathered picnic table behind the house. As an adult, there are few bugs you care to play with. The ones that you might indulge on a wine soaked afternoon are vestiges of childhood — ladybugs, lightning bugs, crickets. Or shells of cicadas, the crackling remains of the insects snagged from trees. We played with them that day. Somewhere there are photos of me with exoskeletons stuck on my cheeks, climbing my arms, tangled in my hair.

Cicadas are noisy, the males outdoing the females by virtue of a body built for amplification of sound. Cicadas like heat, and that summer in Texas we had heat. An excess of heat. We were hotter than we needed to be. We were young. I have the photos to prove it.

Florian Riegel's short film 'Holding Still' has been chosen for competition at Silverdocs in Silver Spring, Maryland, this June. This film is a testament to that summer's heat and the personal fallout from that incendiary season. Thank you again, Florian, for documenting the lightning.

If you're in NYC or Washington DC or anywhere, come see this film. You're invited.

'Childhood living is easy to do...Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away.'

— Jagger/Richards

Short Notice: Visit Krakow, Poland in June 2010! KFF | Krakow Film Festival

2010-05-28T02:01:00.002-05:00

I am partial to 'Holding Still' with its other-worldly hiss-pop music, and I am exceedingly fond of director Florian Riegel. I understand Krakow, Poland is quite the place to be. So....

Established in 1961 as a national short film competition, KFF is the oldest film festival in Poland. Given the planet's history in the last several decades, how did it do that? How did it persist? Must have been passion. The current iteration is an international festival dedicated to documentary, animation and other short film forms. Check it out: this event is a survivor, and the city is ready for a party. They're celebrating their 50th!

Florian Riegel's documentary film 'Holding Still' is in competition on June 3 at Mikro Cinema at 16:30 and on June 5 at Kujów.Centrum Cinema at 10:00.

The logo is cool as all getout. (I'm learning the awards are about creatures and critters and dragons and such — raar.)

If you're in Poland (and who isn't?), make plans to enjoy a week or so in and out of the dark. Do you remember real documentaries and love short films and animation? They still have them. In Krakow. Go now! Step into the flickering light.

We have a WINNER!

2010-05-08T00:29:00.009-05:00

CONGRATULATIONS, FLORIAN!

First Prize of the NRW Competition
1,000 euros, sponsored by the NRW.Bank

Holding Still
Florian Riegel
Germany 2010, 26 min 30 sec, HDCAM, colour

Statement:
A film that develops its narrative slowly. Edited to reveal nothing predictable, it takes its audience right into the tensions of a moving story that gradually unfolds to achieve its full power. The fact that the author takes up this story and the way he does it, even though he came across it by chance, is testimony to his ability to recognise an impressive subject and treat it with respect. A thoughtful cinematography steers us through its own images and the protagonist’s, which are her means of access to her world via her laptop. At the end, the perspective expands once more to include the outside world and gives us a moment of respite.

Rolling along......!

.

While the sun shines

2010-04-27T17:29:00.001-05:00

...and our beaches are unsullied, prayer flags fly.

Cross your fingers as well.

Short Film Festival | Oberhausen Germany TONIGHT

2010-04-22T12:54:00.004-05:00

If you will be in Oberhausen, don't miss the Festival. (How could you?) And please don't miss 'Holding Still.' Florian Riegel has made a lovely film.

From Different Perspectives:

"Those who hold still do not necessarily see less - they see things differently. The slowdown allows us to peek beneath the surface of the visible world."

Go!

'Holding Still' a film by Florian Riegel — tomorrow night

2010-04-21T17:38:00.001-05:00

Florian Riegel's short film, 'Holding Still,' is screening again at the ShortFilm / Kurtzfilm Festival in Oberhausen, Germany on Thursday, April 22. Tomorrow. So, if you happen to be in Germany and have a little free time, try to see this short film. Really try! Roman Polanski, Wim Wenders and Gerhard Schröder praise this venue.

BONUS: I love this part. Kurtzfilm / Oberhausen has one of the most fantastic bizarro posters ever. You can download a high resolution image right here!

See?

Get it quick. They're going fast.

Thank you again, Florian.

Astronauts

2010-03-21T01:37:00.003-05:00

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with
a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the
mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits
of it about.

— Douglas Adams

Hula Hoop in the Headlights

2010-03-18T01:04:00.001-05:00

She navigates a Magic Carpet.

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.
— Japenese saying

It's a holiday town on St. Patty's Day, so we ate corned beef and cabbage with the wind at our back, of course.

"Holding Still" | a film by Florian Riegel

2010-01-31T15:49:00.015-06:00

There is something daunting about writing here, about writing what has happened and what has been said in private. What was disclosed so quietly has been made so public.

You have personal stories you might never tell. Who would you tell? Who would listen? How close to the bone dare you go?

If you trust someone, if you believe they will not pervert your truth, if you believe they are not unlike you in your better and worse moments, if you believe they possess exceptional tools and insights, you might tell things you'd never told in this way before.

And this was the case when I spoke my stories and treasures and secrets into the microphone, forgetting the microphone, because I trusted my audience-of-one who hadn't come looking for this story at all. But a film which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam was born of it.

Just so you know — My trust was not misplaced. I wish I had fed you heartily. I wish we drank all the coffee in the world. I wish you had smoked like crazy in my room. I wish I were in Rotterdam right now.

Thank you, Florian Riegel.

[The IFFR trailer is posted at the bottom of this page. Yes, scroll!]

In appreciation of a New Year's Eve blue moon...

2009-12-31T22:31:00.000-06:00

...and anticipation of a stellar 2010...

...we'll enjoy traditional Hoppin' Johns + Bloody Marys + collards + corn bread (with bacon) (and Irish butter) with a houseful of friends.

Once in a blue moon it all goes away. The clouds clear.... [You can make up the rest for yourself and just hum; it's a good song]

—Randy Prentice

From the Miami Herald, my old hometown newspaper...

Posted on Thursday, 12.31.09

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Rare blue moon will illuminate skies on New Year's Eve

BY SUSANNAH BRYAN
Sun Sentinel
When the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, remember to do one thing: Look up. A full moon will be shining down from its highest point, illuminating the landscape.
``It will be so clear it will take your breath away,'' said Jack Horkheimer, host of the PBS show Star Gazer. ``It will be super bright and super high for us.''
It will be the second full moon of the month -- a phenomenon known as a ``blue moon.'' A full moon on New Year's Eve last occurred on Dec. 31, 1990; it won't happen again until 2028.
Horkheimer, 71, held a ``Howl at the Full Moon'' party 19 years ago for families with kids in his Miami neighborhood.
``They came in their bath robes and pajamas,'' he said.
``It was the most fun New Year's Eve I ever had in my life. Those children are now adults, and they still remember it.''
Horkheimer encourages families to ring in 2010 in similar fashion.

Those who do can send photos or videos toStarGazerHowlIn@gmail.com. Twelve winners will receive a new telescope.

I remember Jack Horkheimer from Miami Space Transit Planetarium. Whoa.

Best wishes for a Brand New Year, y'all!

How it tasted | Santa Rosa Beach c. 1957

2009-11-16T02:12:00.004-06:00

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself
in the sunset.
- Crowfoot, 1890

And what is sweetest in the mid-1950s? The same ... plus a long drive with pillows in the back of a two-tone station wagon, Dramamine knocking us silly, relentless winter sun, reflections in the water, skinny legs, treasures from the sea, bathing suits all one color, sisters with hair blunt cut at home, mother drinking in the saline days, pimento cheese sandwiches, Dad's prescience with the movin' picture camera.

The Conch Shell in the Room

2009-10-21T23:25:00.003-05:00

I forgot to post this grainy photo. Coconut Grove c. 1969. It was a very good year.

Fewer than 70°

2009-10-18T01:20:00.015-05:00

And the sheets are flannel. Everyone is pulling on sweaters at the beach.

People are eating filet mignon in lieu of shrimp...

....and reading.

The Cinnamon Peeler

...by Michael Ondaatje. You really might want to read it.

We all have a renewed and substantial hunger.

You could eat 15 bean soup. Acorn squash + olive oil + butter + garlic + salt/pepper. Cranberry scones. Feisty Rooibos chai from Pekoe Sip House (order by phone). Walnut halves in a cast iron skillet + butter + kosher salt. Cauliflower gratin. Roasted beet salad. Risotto with winter squash. Roasted asparagus + parmigiano reggiano with scrambled eggs. Pan seared scallops. Sweet potatoes + sour cream + caramelized onions. Rustic fruit tarts. Toasted marshmallows. The ultimate: David Eyre's Pancake. Look at the photos. You'll need to make this. And then you'll need to make it again.

Into the night

2009-10-11T01:48:00.004-05:00

Welcome to the neighborhood. It was an old ragtop flying through this October night.

Vroom.

I've missed you! | Intersections

2009-09-12T01:59:00.017-05:00

Click, scroll down, look on the right and listen (Listen for free) to :30 clips of The Beatles: Rock Band remastered. What a wonderful thing to have been born at the perfect intersection of the ultimate rock band and Bob Dylan.

Feed your head. — Jefferson Airplane

Time is the longest distance between two places. — Tennessee Williams

May you stay forever young. —Robert Zimmerman

Meet Colette | The Blue Lantern

2009-08-18T03:24:00.010-05:00

Friday, Oct. 18, 1963

Books: Regarde

THE BLUE LANTERN by Colette. 161 pages. Farrar, Straus. $3.95.

The last word uttered by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette on her deathbed in Paris in 1954 was "regarde." To her, it meant to look, feel, wonder, accept, live. For all her 81 years she obeyed that injunction with an immense, daylight sense of reality and a pagan delight in the sensuous experiences that delivered the world to her mind and to the blue note paper on which she recorded it. The Blue Lantern, written between 1946 and 1948 and now translated into English for the first time, is Colette's last major work—a moving but unsentimental record of how it was with a poet of the senses whose senses were failing...

So many eggs to crack

2009-08-18T02:21:00.010-05:00

.

.

Sweltering on the Florida Panhandle....

2009-08-01T02:35:00.007-05:00

Photo: Fred Sawyer

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it.
—John Berger

Bowl, hairline fracture

2009-07-19T21:32:00.020-05:00

I photographed the gardenia for a week as it swam and shrunk and migrated to the far side of the bowl. And then I saw the crack that said I now had only 3 usable, intact iterations of this favorite white vessel. I must have an odd number of everything now. Stemware, silver, linen napkins become gossamer... It's that we keep what we love as it matures and eventually comes undone. We're all bruised and fractured and cracked. It's how we stay interesting.

When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the

damage by filling the cracks with gold, because they believe

that when something's suffered damage and has a history it

becomes more beautiful.

— Barbara Bloom

On my dentist's advice, I once had a porcelain crown replaced with gold. My dentist told me the gold crown was softer and would last longer. It did. Bend. Don't break.

This flower, not better. Just earlier. Younger. Lying over the crack.

If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues.
— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Too serious?

In Paris, one is always reminded of being a foreigner.
If you park your car wrong, it is not the fact that it's
on the sidewalk that matters, but the fact that you speak
with an accent.
— Roman Polanski

True.

-30-

Lace

2009-07-12T23:52:00.003-05:00

Origami Bird Takes Flight

2009-07-05T00:52:00.009-05:00

Go, little bird!

The simplified form of Bernoulli's equation can be summarized in the following memorable word equation:

static pressure + dynamic pressure = total pressure

Basically, to get a good Cuban cigar—swim or fly. Visit Hemingway's Finca Vigia just outside Havana / Habana. Quickly.

I love a cow

2009-06-28T00:49:00.009-05:00

I especially love a cow in Polaroid.
Or 3.5 cows in Polaroid.

May the canny souls trying to obtain the stuff necessary to make the film, succeed.
May the canny souls trying to obtain the stuff necessary to make the film succeed. (Ambiguous, huh?)
May the canny souls trying to obtain the stuff necessary to make the film succeed in doing so.

I'm thinking it's a...

2009-06-14T00:39:00.004-05:00

....crash.

Blue Monkey's Maiden Flight | Rare Daytime Post

2009-06-11T20:34:00.007-05:00

The Blue Monkey did indeed fly among Honorable Mentions at Digital Graffiti 2009 / Alys Beach last Saturday. And, hey, the Finalists and Winners were truly spectacular. Congratulations!

An aside: I realize now that Blue Monkey is actually turquoise, but Turquoise Monkey's Maiden Flight lands on the ear with a bit of a thud.

What's in a name, huh?

r e p o s t : Digital Graffiti 2008 + 2009

2009-05-28T16:16:00.009-05:00

.
Digital Graffiti 2008 —

Imagine you're at Alys Beach on the Gulf of Mexico with the waves slapping on the sand. Imagine it's your photography on that wall.

Whoa.

Digital Graffiti 2009 —

Think: multiple color-saturated beachside drive-ins on foot + VJ Shantell Martin + drinks + architecture

Saturday, June 6
8:30-midnight
Alys Beach, Florida

Look for my short, very short animation 'Blue Monkey's Maiden Flight' in the courtyard.

Hey, it's fun & frolic! Be there.

Photos: Fred Sawyer

7 AM

2009-05-25T01:00:00.001-05:00

Ephemera

2009-05-23T23:25:00.005-05:00

High school
when it meant something : dress code, effort, mandatory second language,
necessary work-arounds and tricks
essentially innocent though not at all so
not so at all

when
born old

Luck

2009-05-20T02:06:00.005-05:00

I caught a reflection.
Actually I caught a slew of reflections.
The orchid caught my eye.

Kiss 'em goodbye for a bit

2009-05-12T01:34:00.008-05:00

Say farewell to the briny-sweet Apalachicola Bay oyster for a few months. Sublimate with boards of Gorgonzola dolce + honey + prosciutto + melon until fall. Make lunch of tomato + mozzarella + basil caprese with olive oil and baguette. Halve avocados, splash on the hot sauce, sprinkle with diced Vidalia onion and salt. An avocado is its own bowl. Get trays and pop out ice cubes of ruby pomegranate juice. Buy a seltzer water bottle and spritz fruity syrups. Eat after sundown. Drink a lot of sangria. Drink a lot.

It's hot out there. Even now, it's hot.

PS Most bottled waters are somebody else's tap water so get a filter for your kitchen sink. Plastic bottles are forever. Save a dinosaur.

More pearls and a longtime delusion

2009-04-28T00:52:00.012-05:00

Beware the urge to check your pleasant word in the dictionary. The familiar one you believe you know so clearly that you'd never researched it. But you don't know. Not really.

All my life—forever, until today—I've believed the surface of a pearl was formed of the magical.creamy.delicious French nacre. But no. Nacre is mother of pearl and lines the lovely shells we used as ashtrays on screened porches circled with windchimes. Fine, but nacre is not a pearl and no one smokes any longer, so I plant succulents in the shells. Briefly. They advance quickly from shallow shells to celadon pots. There's another word I won't look up. Celadon. And shagreen. Onion skin. Penultimate.

I prefer innocence. Illusion. Delusion. I prefer nacre as the surface of my pearls. Or glow.

I checked a thesaurus. There is no synonym listed for 'moonlight.'

Spring arrives in music + impossible greens

2009-04-21T01:21:00.022-05:00

"Suppose there is a pigeon, suppose there is" —Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons

Music for this springtime:

Van Morrison — Astral Weeks Live At the Hollywood Bowl
Madeleine Peyroux — Bare Bones
Jolie Holland — the living and the dead
Neko Case — Middle Cyclone
Avett Brothers — Mignonette
Heartless Bastards — The Mountain
David Byrne & Brian Eno — Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
Lucinda Williams + Shelby Lynne — YouTube, Still I Long for Your Kiss
+ a bottle of wine

People, places, thinkin' | Independent Lens

2009-04-13T00:49:00.005-05:00

Lions and tigers and bears ... who cares? PBS does. A PBS hour or two of who is caring about something. Irresistible.

Frog went a-courtin'...

2009-04-09T20:24:00.005-05:00

...and he did ride, uh-huh.

I feel silly, oh, so silly.

Wallflowers | long-term potentiation | Memories

2009-04-07T01:56:00.012-05:00

I was concerned about sentimentality and photos of roses — or more truthfully, my grandmother and the Windsor Rose nail polish that she wore always and forever. But everyone has a grandmother and a memory or two, the persistence of which is unlikely by any measure, but there it is like Windsor Rose. And the incessant smoking, occasionally with a cigarette holder or possibly cherry tobacco tamped into a carved wood gargoylesque ladie's pipe with semi-precious stone eyes or shrimp cocktail with Saltines or wearing heels and sporting pearl earrings while watering the lawn with an impossibly ugly green hose.... This is the grandmother who taught me to pack her pipe and smoke it. She gave me that pipe by the time I was 10. I lost it or gave it to a friend.

Today I read a NYTimes blog regarding memory. There are currenlty 186 readers' comments posted, but if you sort for Editors' Selections, you might read a dozen or so and then be not quite able to turn off the thought process.

So I quit even thinking the blurry shots might be sentimental.

Petrichor and Merriam-Webster and me

2009-04-01T23:17:00.012-05:00

I'm puzzled.

There is a definition for 'petrichor' here and a singular place for it in A.Word.A.Day but no definition at Merriam-Webster online except obliquely as the root (second) 'ichor' 2 : an ethereal fluid taking the place of blood in the veins of the ancient Greek gods.

Possibly it has to work its way into Oxford English Dictionary to be deemed a part of our lexicon. I venture it's in OED. Does anyone subscribe?

Ichor but no petrichor.

You know petrichor like you know rain, earth, air. Don't you?

Another poem...

2009-03-29T03:01:00.005-05:00

...begs reading. You might need to maximize its format [larger/smaller] for optimal viewing. You'll know it when you see it.

More pearls and Albert Einstein

2009-03-29T02:16:00.013-05:00

This may be the end of the pearls for now. This manipulation, when I am in that sleepy-but-still-pondering place, reminds me of Einstein in his elevator being hauled through time/space — which makes me think of the poem that sent me off into the back alleys of the internets to read about the man in his less lofty moments.

More pearls [with lyrics & interruption]

2009-03-23T19:36:00.014-05:00

After a while / you just can't help but smile
As you watch things go around / mmm mmm (lost to time)

Once in a blue moon / it all goes away
The clouds clear / I can see my way

—rp/ch Coconut Grove, c. 1971

...and a Florida-only fly-thing-lette walks into my shot. Just lucky, I guess.

Flying Fish

2009-03-21T18:48:00.005-05:00

Forest for the trees...

2009-03-17T22:25:00.013-05:00

It's never occurred to me to leave home to make art. —Sally Mann

Time, temperature, postcard from the author

2009-03-15T02:09:00.003-05:00

Andre Dubus August 11, 1936 - February 24, 1999

Tibet | Late Night SpyCam

2009-03-13T01:45:00.003-05:00

Digital Graffiti | Alys Beach 2008

2009-02-26T18:34:00.007-06:00

Imagine you're at Alys Beach on the Gulf of Mexico with the waves slapping on the sand. Imagine it's your photography on that wall.
Whoa.
Photo: Fred Sawyer

Eat More Pearls

2009-02-26T18:21:00.003-06:00

Orchid

2009-02-26T16:25:00.002-06:00