January 23rd, 2010 | link
John Baldessari
EVERYTHING IS PURGED FROM THIS PAINTING BUT ART, NO IDEAS HAVE ENTERED THIS WORK.
1966-1968
You’re only as hip as your bookshelf.
January 23rd, 2010 | link
That’s not true at all. No one sees your bookshelf, so you can rest assured that your copy of Blue Like Jazz isn’t being judged by anyone. Heyo. Sorry, Don. Kind of. No but really you’re great. I think. I don’t know we’ve never met. I’m sure you’re great.
Semi-seriously, I know it’s kind of pretentious to make a list of stuff I’m reading and listening to, as if to say Hey! Look at my cool books that make me appear unique and intellectual! So, apologies in advance, but I think the books and music below are great, and I thought you might be looking for something new. Actually I have no idea what you’re looking for, or who you are for that matter. But really I bet you’re great. I think.
These books and albums were given to me or recommended to me by friends, and they were all right. It’s great stuff.
Add to the list if you like. I wish we could start a book club. Like Oprah. RIP Oprah.
Top to bottom, left to right (take Tylenol for any blah blah blah)
1. Modern Art and the Death of Culture by Rookmaaker
2. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
3. Photographs Vol. I by Scott Caan
4. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
5. Giant Size (Andy Warhol) edited by Phaidon
6. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
7. Richard Avedon Photographs 1946-2004
8. Immediate Family by Sally Mann (I love you, Sally)
9. After Theory by Terry Eagleton
10. Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard
11. Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
12. The Artist’s Realty: Philosophies of Art by Mark Rothko
13. A River Runs Through It by Norman McLean
14. A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut
All of these books are super cheap if bought used (sans Caan, Avedon, & Mann). What a great bundle of books. I’d say that Bird by Bird has been one of the most influential books in my life. Maybe Traveling Mercies. Lamott, thanks. You’re my favorite. And buy Vonnegut. He’s everything I want to be, except dead. RIP Kurt.
As for music, I am not a great source for new or hip albums, but I love every song on all of these records. Also, if I owned a record store I’d call it Championship Vinyl Overdrive.
1. The Antlers // Hospice
2. The Album Leaf // Into the Blue Again
3. Alcoholic Faith Mission // 421 Wythe Avenue
4. Tom Waits // Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
5. The National // Boxer (my most listened-to album in ’09)
6. Max Richter // The Blue Notebooks
7. David Bazan // Curse Your Branches
8. M83 // Before the Dawn Heals Us
9. Brian Eno // Ambient 1: Music for Airports
10. Alaska in Winter // Holiday
Again, I’m not a music critic, so don’t slay me based on my preferences. Nick Hornby says It’s what you like, not what you’re like that counts…” He’s wrong. Sorry, Nick. RIP.
Nick’s not even dead. He spoke here two months ago at the library.
RIP Nick.
January 22nd, 2010 | link
I’d stop posting these, but I’m not going to.
I came out of the womb like this: Hello!
Beginnings & Endings &
January 14th, 2010 | link
(Photograph by Paul Octavious)
When January comes, my emotions swing on a pendulum. One side of me, my logical/rational (and often more cynical) side says Happy Birthday Gregorian Calendar! It feels like nothing special; it’s just another day in the system we’ve created. Resolutions go as rapidly as they came, and those desires of change quickly turn to guilt of failed ambition. Sometimes I feel as though I should have been born in the Enlightenment era. Logic wins!
But another part of my schizophrenic self, the more Judaic, mystical side, is hopelessly romantic about beginnings & endings & beginnings &. I desperately, deeply need them both. Births mark the beginning of something new while also reminding us of what was lost with the arrival of newness. Deaths are painful, but in that pain lies the hope of resurrection, of another birth that is coming soon. Births and deaths are inseparable, and each are fully known only when we are willing to examine one in the context of the other.
So with 2010 comes the death of 2009 and the birth of a new year. For me, 2009 brimmed with experiences of life and death. In the past few weeks I’ve thought To hell with 2009. May it never be again. And when I speak those words images immediately come to mind of beautiful moments that were so full of life and light. If I hadn’t experienced x then I wouldn’t have had so many cups of coffee with y. I can replace x and y with dozens of people and places. Tragedy and beauty. Lovers who shouldn’t be, yet are.
In reflecting over the past year, and often in the past years, I’m reminded of how much I have enjoyed writing here and interacting with so many people that I would otherwise probably not have met. This blog itself has experienced deaths and rebirths. A few of my friends have endlessly encouraged me to write and create for my own health and healing, and they’re the ones who told me to let my blog experience a rebirth. In my own shame I at first said no, that I had killed it and that was that, but they reminded me of how we do not live in a finite existence, that we believe in resurrection, in the small and the large things in life.
With that, I thank you for reading and sticking with me through thick and thin, through my sarcasm, rants on religion, photographs, travels, projects, cursing, emails about my cursing, IM conversations with no context, Twitter screenshots with no context, context with not context, and sentences like this that ramble on and on. Truly, thank you. As much as I don’t want to admit it because it’s so cliché, I really do love writing and putting photographs here. It keeps me creating, and it’s good for me to work through motivations and desires to be seen and heard, to have a microphone, and to have a voice.
2010 will, inevitably, be full of births and deaths. Writing that sentence I thought Please God, no. But they will happen, and in both I will pray, because sometimes it feels like that’s all I can do. And, as far as I can presume, I’ll document all the life, death, sarcasm, quotes out of context, religious views, art influences, and ridiculousness that I, at least, find humorous.
One change to this blog happened immediately with the new year: on the sidebar you might notice a few advertisements. One is static from Mars Hill Graduate School, where I attend and a school that I will endlessly promote because of how much I have loved it these past three years. The transformative processes and experiences are too many to write about or describe in ways that give them the weight they deserve. I love MHGS and will weep in June when I graduate. The other ads are from the Fusion Network, and ad firm that promotes mostly tech-related services. It’s like a little family, but Canadian. I use a lot of the products that they advertise and they pay attention to design, which I appreciate. Click on the ads if you are so inclined. Apply to Mars Hill and buy stuff from Fusion. The internet told me to do it, so I did it!
2010, I’m ready for you. Be kind, and I’ll do likewise.
Here’s to the birth of a new year. Thanks for reading.
(Photograph by John Carl)
January 10th, 2010 | link
I’ve concluded that I would totally gay marry Cameron. I’m straight
ladies
but I would totally gay marry Cameron.
January 10th, 2010 | link
Adopt me, Dunphy family! (Sorry dad. No offense. Longbrakes forever! Until I get adopted. By the Dunphys.)
January 3rd, 2010 | link
After months of accumulating equipment from Craigslist, friends, and stores, my darkroom is at last fully functional. I haven’t processed and printed in over 3 years, so I’ve had to do a lot of reading and experimenting to get comfortable with the process again. It’s all been worth it, in my opinion. Doing this kind of work makes me really happy. I need that.
Diamond let me shoot a roll of medium format film of her a few days ago. I needed to shoot a certain kind of film that I could process on my own, and Diamond kindly cleared a few hours for me to stop by and rearrange her furniture. Annie Leibovitz says that photography is 5% talent, 95% moving furniture. I hope she’s right.
Diamond: Your glasses are prescription?
Me: Uh huh.
Diamond: Wow. And all this time I thought you simply wanted to look like a dad.
Me: Thanks D.
