Noir Time

It's been a busy time and I missed a Tuesday and the garden is overflowing with weeds and a nasty varmint who ate my stunning sunflower that was right out of Jack and the Beanstalk. Oh well. There is this light and this shadow. There is always the basic writing with light photography that remains a constant.

I like the noir quality zigzagging the hallway. It reminds me of the scariest damn movie I watched this week, which was a mixed and harrowing affair.  Before the Devil Knows You're Dead  is a knockout film - Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, a freaky drug dealer in a kimono - but, man, it's so frightening. I could barely fall asleep afterward and then dreamed about bombs exploding, which is not my typical nightmare drama - those usually involve cars and no keys and sand. Lots of sand.

Two for Tuesday: Attachment

Two diverse worlds collide this Tuesday as I think about the man named Badger I met in the parking lot of a thrift shop in Cottonwood, Arizona. He's a preacher who lives in his Toyota van and has, it seems, for a very long time. The man experienced a conversion and holds a belief so strong that every day he parks his van by the side of the road where he preaches the gospel, surrounded by heat and dust and his handmade signs proclaiming the power of his lord.

As we talked, he pulled out his special doll named Miss Susie. He blew the dust off her face, wiped her eyes with his thumb, and smiled. "I've had this doll for 22 years," he said. "Miss Suzie and I go way back." For a man who lives in a van and has lived several lifetimes in his lifetime, it's fairly remarkable to me that Miss Susie has survived the journey, that she's remained the cherished possession of this bonafide anti-materialist. I mean, really, what are the chances? Practically zero to none.

I'm not sure what to say about this unlikely pair other than attachments can be mysterious and surprising and deep.

Later in the week, I heard a New York intellectual, Akiko Busch, lecture about the power of objects in our lives. The line from her talk that stays with me is this: "We think with the objects we love. We love the objects we think with."

I wonder about the love and thoughts Badger has shared with Miss Susie, the black doll in the comfy white pajamas.

Sum,Sum, Summertime

Summertime is here and the weather is so sweet I want to can it to keep on the shelf.

Found this fountain during this week's early evening wind down walk with Ree. It's in a park, a place where this old school style fountain has stood in its stance of offering since, when - 1950, 1963, maybe 1970?

All day long Ree and I whirled and tumbled and scribbled during a bona fide remarkable writing workshop taught by the cheerful and intelligent, the man with the cap, Dan Mueller. Ree and I needed our walks. We needed to erase the board.

Still, my head is full of words and ideas. Confabulation is one. The ascending arcs of energy is another.

Two for Tuesday: Crossing Together

Thinking about father's day up ahead made me go find a favorite twosome I discovered one day waiting at a traffic light in Chicago. The bald and the spiked make a lovely broad-shouldered pair.

They appear so stocky and strong, and yet there is something about the way they hold hands, the cuffed and frayed jeans, the upright stance of the boy and the knowing rightward tilt of his daddy that brings a little tenderness to this father and son, hairy and hairless pair.

Two for Tuesday: Taking Off

This twosome is an aspirational moment that lifts me beyond the bounds of my routinized thinking.

Why not  unlace the sneakers and head down the trail? Who says you need protection to be safe? When did it become a rule to keep everything grounded and covered up?

What attracts me most about this pair of leaping feet is that it suggests a lift off that may never end. Perhaps this is the beginning of a journey touched by magic.

It makes me think of something my hero Joseph Campbell once said: "We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about."

Caught

Got a little improvisational and silly free the other day. Such a different method of working after the whole narrative dress project with its clear storyline and outfits. The summer has been an open window so far. Hoping for more.

I heard a great interview on Fresh Air with the director/writer Wes Anderson. He said he doesn't like to think too hard about the meaning of everything when he's making something new. I want it to be a little odd, he said, abstract, maybe poetic.

Cheers to not knowing and to the odd surprises.