Buddy Jackson, artist, Nashville, TN. March 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Trying to talk with a man
by Adrienne Rich
Out in this desert we are testing bombs,
that's why we came here.
Sometimes I feel an underground river
forcing its way between deformed cliffs
an acute angle of understanding
moving itself like a locus of the sun
into this condemned scenery.
What we’ve had to give up to get here –
whole LP collections, films we starred in
playing in the neighborhoods, bakery windows
full of dry, chocolate-filled Jewish cookies,
the language of love-letters, of suicide notes,
afternoons on the riverbank
pretending to be children
Coming out to this desert
we meant to change the face of
driving among dull green succulents
walking at noon in the ghost town
surrounded by a silence
that sounds like the silence of the place
except that it came with us
and is familiar
and everything we were saying until now
was an effort to blot it out –
coming out here we are up against it
Out here I feel more helpless
with you than without you
You mention the danger
and list the equipment
we talk of people caring for each other
in emergencies - laceration, thirst -
but you look at me like an emergency
Your dry heat feels like power
your eyes are stars of a different magnitude
they reflect lights that spell out: EXIT
when you get up and pace the floor
talking of the danger
as if it were not ourselves
as if we were testing anything else.
by Adrienne Rich
Out in this desert we are testing bombs,
that's why we came here.
Sometimes I feel an underground river
forcing its way between deformed cliffs
an acute angle of understanding
moving itself like a locus of the sun
into this condemned scenery.
What we’ve had to give up to get here –
whole LP collections, films we starred in
playing in the neighborhoods, bakery windows
full of dry, chocolate-filled Jewish cookies,
the language of love-letters, of suicide notes,
afternoons on the riverbank
pretending to be children
Coming out to this desert
we meant to change the face of
driving among dull green succulents
walking at noon in the ghost town
surrounded by a silence
that sounds like the silence of the place
except that it came with us
and is familiar
and everything we were saying until now
was an effort to blot it out –
coming out here we are up against it
Out here I feel more helpless
with you than without you
You mention the danger
and list the equipment
we talk of people caring for each other
in emergencies - laceration, thirst -
but you look at me like an emergency
Your dry heat feels like power
your eyes are stars of a different magnitude
they reflect lights that spell out: EXIT
when you get up and pace the floor
talking of the danger
as if it were not ourselves
as if we were testing anything else.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Bobby Dean Stanley, VA - November, 2011
I have been very blessed in my life; the muses have always lead me to the right place at the right moment. I was driving through southwestern Virginia this past November, and ended up near Norton, VA right after the sun had set. I stopped and had a small meal of crackers on the edge of town in the thickening twilight and pressed on. After a few short minutes of driving through town, I found myself at the other end of town in front of a little log cabin community center called the Country Cabin. I could hear the music drifting out into the ink black silence of night. I parked my little red truck and grabbed my 35mm camera and tape recorder and headed in. When I entered the building, I found a circle of folk singing and playing. One of these folk was Bobby Dean Stanley. He was singing with everything he had; I could see that from the back of the room. Bobby Dean Stanley was a coal miner. He has "a bit of black lung," but although he has difficulty breathing, his voice is beautiful and melodic and soulful. After the Country Cabin closed, we stood outside on the porch in the cold, dark night, the kind of night where you can see your breath floating away in foggy wisps in the air. Bobby sang me songs by the light of my headlights and I recorded them. Here is one for you to listen to:
Monday, March 5, 2012
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Death and Love and Loss and Starting Over again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
This year, I hit the ground running. On January 1st, I felt nothing but optimism, and was bright eyed and bushy tailed: ready for work, ready for love, ready to keep pushing forward. And then, all of a sudden, my life took a major turn, and I found myself figuratively locked outside in my underpants in the snow. Which is, of course, sometimes just how it goes.
In February, Rebecca Solnit gave a reading at the 92nd Street Y that I was fortunate enough to attend. I got to hear a bit of this passage read aloud when she was introduced.
From A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
"A happy love is a single story, a disintegrating one is two or more competing, conflicting versions, and a disintegrated one lies at your feet like a shattered mirror, each shard reflecting a different story, that it was wonderful, that it was terrible, if only this had, if only that hadn't. The stories don't fit back together, and it's the end of the stories, those devices we carry like shells and shields and blinkers and occasionally maps and compasses. The people close to you become mirrors and journals in which you record your history, the instruments that help you know yourself and remember yourself, and you do the same for them. When they vanish so does the use, the appreciation, the understanding of those small anecdotes, catchphrases, jokes: they become a book slammed shut or burnt. Though I came out of this house transformed, stronger and surer than I had been, and carrying with me more knowledge of myself, of men, of love, of deserts and wildernesses.
The stories shatter. Or you wear them out or leave them behind. Over time the story or the memory loses its power. Over time you become someone else. Only when the honey turns to dust are you free... Heartbreak is a little like falling in love, in the way it changes everything with a kind of incandescence, as though the beloved has stepped away and your gaze now rests with all the same intensity on all the items of the view that close-up person blocked."
In February, Rebecca Solnit gave a reading at the 92nd Street Y that I was fortunate enough to attend. I got to hear a bit of this passage read aloud when she was introduced.
From A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
"A happy love is a single story, a disintegrating one is two or more competing, conflicting versions, and a disintegrated one lies at your feet like a shattered mirror, each shard reflecting a different story, that it was wonderful, that it was terrible, if only this had, if only that hadn't. The stories don't fit back together, and it's the end of the stories, those devices we carry like shells and shields and blinkers and occasionally maps and compasses. The people close to you become mirrors and journals in which you record your history, the instruments that help you know yourself and remember yourself, and you do the same for them. When they vanish so does the use, the appreciation, the understanding of those small anecdotes, catchphrases, jokes: they become a book slammed shut or burnt. Though I came out of this house transformed, stronger and surer than I had been, and carrying with me more knowledge of myself, of men, of love, of deserts and wildernesses.
The stories shatter. Or you wear them out or leave them behind. Over time the story or the memory loses its power. Over time you become someone else. Only when the honey turns to dust are you free... Heartbreak is a little like falling in love, in the way it changes everything with a kind of incandescence, as though the beloved has stepped away and your gaze now rests with all the same intensity on all the items of the view that close-up person blocked."
Monday, February 20, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
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