Entries Tagged 'Oh, Johnny...' ↓

When was the last time I took a two-week vacation?  I honestly can’t say with any certainty - high school, college…? A couple years back we spent ten days in Paris. It felt extravagant and my memories of our time there are as airy and sweet as a macaroon.  We recently spent two whole weeks traveling in Italy; to Bologna, the Cinque Terre, Florence and some of the surrounding country villages of Tuscany. There were so many great moments to the trip I’ll eventually reprise, but right now I’m just pondering the indulgence of time off and the revelatory moments in travel which lend clarity to life and purpose.  

Whether it’s a 2-hour lunch (do as the Italians do…) or a 2-week vacation, I recognized in Italy a need to build more space into my life.  I need a break from the anxieties I’ve developed, the ambition I struggle with. Maybe it’s a middle-class myopia but I think many of us in this country are far too occupied with following a virtuous path of career, family, pinch and save, that we shortchange our own value. To indulge and celebrate oneself (I sense a Walt Whitman stanza in here somewhere…) is vital, and I think the Italian culture showed a stronger appreciation of that.  

We had just spent two-plus hours eating, drinking and communing at SoloCiccia and we were sitting on a bench off a quiet road, staring off lazily at the rows of vineyards and rolling verdant hills of Panzano. The clouds in the sky were luminous, architectural. It was so clear, so obvious that this place was paradise. When we were back in crazy, bustling Florence, or crowded back on the plane coming home, even back in SF, I kept daydreaming of Panzano…If we lived there we would have a simple, happy life. And that may be true, but I’m slowly beginning to accept that I don’t need to live in Chianti to experience beauty and calm and fulfillment in a place.  The Bay Area - this land, these people, the community values - has all those elements, I just need to reorient my life to better incorporate them.  To center myself, physically and spiritually, into this place.  I’ve felt it before and I’m grateful for it now, the best part of traveling is coming home. 

Polaroid recently announced that it would discontinue instant-film production. Even with local film processing shops closing left and right, I was still surprised and not a little nostalgic by this, ahem, development.

Like the Gocco, which was discontinued then revived through grassroots effort, I think the polaroid still has broad appeal to the DIY set. It’s a medium, like photography itself, that caters equally to the mundane as to fine art, and even in between. Call me naive but I believe somewhere in the mechanical-chemical processes involved in exposing and developing film there are mystical forces at work. Particles of life are captured, float mysteriously onto the film and are reorganized in some verisimilitude of the subject. The photograph for me is never as my eyes saw it, but how the film rendered it. As Garry Winogrand said, “what is photographed is changed by being photographed.”

Digital formats just don’t seem to have the same life. I wonder if we’re not losing something to the instantaneous high-bit capture and cataloging of the visual world - like the patrons stepping from Van Gogh to Matisse at the Musee d’Orsay and staring into the LCD’s of their cameras without actually appreciating the art in front of them. There’s transcendence and mystery in emulsion. I look at the work of master photographers and I can sense it.

Many moons ago a friend loaned me a hardcover copy of Phillippe Halsman’s Jump Book. The pictures sparkled with life, demonstrating an ingenious portrait technique that illuminated the character of each individual in ways that traditional portraiture could not. In the accompanying text, Halsman playfully introduces his science of “jumpology”, which analyzes airborne physical expression like a psychologist analyzes behavior. The series of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is one of my favorite pieces ever.

Halsmann’s brand of whimsy is also a principal force in the work of Lee Friedlander, whose retrospective is showing now at the SFMoMA. Though I’m pretty familiar with his work, I was still struck by the stunning composition of even his most improvised street shots. There’s a lot of life inside the frame.

As a weird aside to all this, the life of Philippe Halsmann recently found its way onto the big screen. Jump! explores a sensational murder trial during Halsmann’s youth and features the theatrical stylings of Patrick Swayze!

Related
An amusing modern take on Jumpology

Found Magazine Polaroid Caption Contest

The dawn of a new year has never been a time where I felt inclined towards nostalgia or reflection - outside of my record collection, anyway (see earlier post below) - but I feel like the last year blew by in a fog. I’ve been going over pictures from the year to remind myself where the hell I was. I don’t avidly document everything in pictures as some people do, and out of some misguided asceticism I resisted any long-distance travel other than a fun but short excursion to Portland. So this smattering of my life feels incomplete.

I normally detest the idea of a new year’s resolution but this year I aim to do more. Travel, take classes, cook, bike, hike, actually follow through on those art projects. The pictures from 2008 may not prove any more interesting but I hope the year ahead is full of more of the following.

Walking all over this town, with my lady

Picking tomatoes at Mariquita farm, canning them and making a simple pasta with some of the fresh tomatoes

Going home and swimming in the river, a summer rite. I’m loath to use any words here like peace, meditation, etc but if pushed to define it, this would be my ‘happy place’

The Saturday farmer’s market as sustenance, inspiration, and friendly meet-and-greet. Top, a summer’s bounty; Bottom, handmade foods we started making this year

clockwise from left: tortillas and masa cakes (here with chorizo and potatoes); whole chicken carving (head edited for your viewing pleasure); hand-cranked pasta; pizzas with any imaginable topping, including an egg; roasted beet salad with olive oil-marinated goat cheese

Farm tours (here at Marin Sun Farms)

Journeying in the oft-frustrating, occasionally euphoric art of espresso. I started to roast my own coffee this year too.

Camping and hiking on the California coast

Saturday was a lovely clear day, the first in what felt like weeks. After the farmer’s market we high-tailed it out of the city to Mt. Tam. It didn’t matter that it was mid-day and we might be two out of hundreds of people with the same idea. The goal was a hike, the incentives were sunshine, fresh air and a different view than the glum, obscured mess from our apartment’s moist windows in the winter.

We ended up choosing a loop from segments of Matt Davis, Coastal, Cataract and Old Mine trails. It was one of the best hikes we’ve ever been on, certainly one within 20 minutes of our apartment, but that’s an unnecessary qualifier. The ground was soft and fragrant with downed douglas fir and bay leaf branches; the waterfalls were many and active; the vistas were extraordinary and clear; and strangest of all, only a handful of people appeared to share the mountain with us that day. I think we saw more hawks and falcons than other hikers.

Each time I go to Mt Tam I find it more remarkable. There are seemingly endless ways to traverse its slopes whether on foot or bike, as a backpacker, beachgoer or run of the mill nature-jerk. And though the concept of ‘the Bay Area’s backyard’ doesn’t inspire faith in its preservation or pristine-ness, I think the more people that get out of their cars and onto trails, the more politically viable reclaiming open spaces becomes.

There was a time once, not so long ago, when driving down I-80 meant passing long stretches of farmland. A time when Sacramento, Roseville and Rocklin were distinct towns with discrete geography. When Vacaville seemed like just a name, but the Nut Tree was a destination. Or at least a point of reference in a journey.

I was randomly surfing through old postcard images on this amazingly vast site, looking for an image of Union Square before its renovation, when I stumbled upon the photo above. It’s a lavish display, with Eames fiberglass chairs, bold fabrics, and patrons dressed not like they just came off the road, but like they’re out on the town…at the Nut Tree?

As inconceivable as it is to my memory of the place, the Nut Tree in its prime was the epitome of mid-century chic. With an eye towards modern design and the cosmopolitan, the restaurant incorporated scandinavian influences, cutting-edge building design and construction, and exotic food presentation. For a time it was even the sole West Coast retailer for Eames furniture. Dig the chair display, below.

Those times when my family had to get out of the car and rest we never even ventured here. We went across the street to the Coffee Tree. The only thing I remember of either place was an unsettling sense of anachronism. The restaurants are gone, but with the communities along I-80 growing like a stucco-colored mold, I pine for those Nut Tree days. Back to a time when this corridor had a rustic charm and a building in the middle of nothing could lure you off the road and share with you its sense of place.

Kurt Vonnegut passed away last night. I don’t know how widely read he is these days, but several of his books are among my favorites. Underneath the irreverent humor and seemingly extemporaneous structure is a heart heavy with human-ness - both its capacity for malice as well as kindness and beauty. To him, God is a concept. Saints are people who act decently in an indecent society. Music represents the apotheosis of mankind.

In the face of all this madness - neo-conservatism, global warming, war, jihads, genocide, Paris Hilton - we must seek out those things, however small or fleeting, that can evince some glimmer of sanity. Whenever I stumble across such a moment, I always hearken back to this speech Vonnegut gave a few years ago reminding us to practice art, however poorly, and notice when we are happy. Perhaps an odd sentiment from a writer of dark humor, but Vonnegut called himself a Humanist and his canon reflects this duality.

Speaking of canons and, well, cannons, Hunter S. Thompson propelled his ashes into the atmosphere through one. I don’t know if Vonnegut had any last wishes as grand, but I can’t think of a better commemoration of the man than picking up a book of his one languid afternoon, laughing and thinking, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

Under Pages now is a link to some of my photographs. The selection is rather arbitrary. The artistry is no doubt questionable. But this is my site and I’ll do what I damn please, thank you very much.

I love clouds and I took rolls of film of them at one time. Not so much anymore. More recently, I’m interested in what I call “backwards portraits”, some of which you’ll find under the category City. They’re probably more a result of me shying away from putting a camera in somebody’s face, but I also love the idea of (literally) capturing a side of a person they themselves never see.

Scientists, theologians, philosophers and politicians all have volumes to say about when you are born and when you are dead. But for the time in between - the living, doing, and being - there seems to be a relatively hollow set of guides. So I turn, as I often do, to music for inspiration. Yet when I listen for some divine or mystical apprehension I hear:

“He not busy being born
is busy dying” - Bob Dylan

“Life is what happens to you
while you’re busy making other plans” - John Lennon

“They were born
and then they lived
and then they died” - Morrissey

“I hate my life” - Joe Pernice

Damn.

Ok. I’m going to have to make this up as I go along. I feel like I am only at the beginning. This is where I am. That is where I was. I don’t know what this is or where I’m going. I’m just working through it. I am a dilettante. I am johnnycomelately.

Consider this a document of my peripatetic endeavors towards some kind of clarity. If you’ve visited here before you’ve seen photos, short takes on music and a healthy dose of the god-only-know-what brand of ephemera. Chances are you’ll be seeing all that and more, only in new, technicolor blogoriffic format.