MakingHappy

Untitled (Priorities II)

I am really into the use of guitar in this live version of "Southern Belle". I don't know enough about guitar playing to know if it's how the guitar is miked or what but the plucking is so aggressive at times that it sounds more like bass.

"I don't want to walk around, breathe the air you breathe. Stuck in a southern town. Where all you can do is grit your teeth. I wouldn't have you how you want.

How come you're not ashamed of what you are?"

and then later....

"There ain't nobody looking now. Nobody nothing said. Nobody's about to shout. Nobody's seeing red. But I wouldn't have you how you want."

The venom in those lines is delightful.

Resilience, Determination II

Unfortunately this one did not turn out as well as the first (different film, dark and rainy day, wide lens) but I had to post this and show that over on the west coast this little snowman is still keeping on keeping on. A year later the window display makes even less sense yet I was so excited to find him peering out from his perch. He even had some new company. It is very doubtful that I will end up in Portland at the same time a third year in a row so I will have to ask some Portlanders to keep an eye on my resilient and determined snowman.

I just got back with about 15 rolls of film taken since January. I still have more undeveloped film sitting around. I've been very prolific this winter. If you're looking for me, I'll be chained to this machine for the next 2 weeks or so. I'm gonna have to find some new music to listen to because any additional Elliott Smith marathons will send me into a deep pit of hopeless melancholy.

Scilla | Speakers

Lately I can't seem to remember what I have posted here and what I haven't. Repeating myself in pictures seems even worse than my penchant for repeating stories.

Song: Here's something that I know I'm repeating. "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel. I am not a Peter Gabriel fan. That whole Sledgehammer thing does not do it for me at all. And Genesis conjures up countless bad memories of trying to sleep on a school night while my parents "party" with their friends downstairs. Rob showing off the awesome power of fancy speakers accompanying a cheap-ass amp purchased on credit at The Brick.

My brother inherited those speakers.

We still laugh about it recalling the pathetic combination of a marathon session of "A Trick of the Tail" or "Duke" thumping through the floors with the anemic support of a cheap amp. Sometimes laughing is all you have. I know now why so many writers cull from their personal vault of shitty experiences; it's a combination of payback and passive retribution. There are other reasons too but today I am thinking about those specifically. If all you inherited were bad memories, pain and a set of shitty speakers you might as well make it into something, right?

But "Solsbury Hill" is different. I associate it with change, the optimism of self-discovery, and moving forward trusting yourself to be the best steward of you that you can be.

Golden

Such a messed up bunch of days. Today alone was enough.

- Almost taken out twice by two different negligent drivers within a 30 second time span. Thanks assholes who drive while talking on the phone! I am sure your conversation was very important. Walking the streets has turned into a game of murderball. The best part was when only moments after a tongue wagging from me, an older gent who was also almost hit started beating the second car with his rolled-up newspaper. I yelled out, "Ya get him!" I am feeling vengeful today. I have considered carrying a pocketful of rocks.

- Gorgeous, sunny days. My white winter skin is burned!

- Walking, walking, walking.

- Lots of pictures. I justify that double pack of polaroids by calling it "work." The very important work. The work that does not pay a salary. The work that cost $30.

- "Your evil power is fun to use!" TM Someday I will explain this but those in the know will understand and nod. Possibly approvingly. Vengence feels good.

Lined Up in a Row

Songs: "Chelsea Girls" and "These Days" Elliott Smith live performances. I know, I know. But there has been so much. I have to force myself to listen to other things. Listen for the audience member scream during "Chelsea Girls." I love his version of "These Days." It has been one of my favourite walking songs for many months. Afterall, it does begin, "I've been out walking." Kinda hard to NOT associate it with walking.

And speaking of walking... what a great day! I forgot what it felt like to be warm. Turns out I like it a whole lot more than being cold. I let myself have an hour today to walk about with a handful of cameras and good music playing in my ears. And with the days getting longer we actually have time after work to go for another walk. Fuck you winter! We made it out alive. HA!

Past Party

This song is very sad.

Untitled (i love this bar)

"Learning more and more about less and less and less."
- "Love & Communication" Cat Power.

Hamilton

And cigarette

"I was dreaming of the past
And my heart was beating fast
I began to lose control
I began to lose control "

I've been listening to this song on repeat since last night.
It's the melody that really gets me more-so than the lyrics.
Davin likes the whistling.

Plum Blossoms

"She appears composed, so she is, I suppose
Who can really tell?"

Thanks to Donna who sent me here, which sent me here, leading to all of this. I have warned Davin that he should prepare himself for All Elliott Smith, All The Time.

Flying Dragon (Poncirus trifoliata)

I fell in love with this wall and this citrus tree at the Chinese Garden in Portland. As I stared out the windows while traveling from the airport to downtown Portland my raced with all kinds of grand ideas for the kinds of botanical pictures I would like to take. In the end I was almost completely sidetracked by other things I saw but am thankful that I still have the opportunity to pursue those ideas given that we are still trudging our way through the last dregs of winter here in Toronto.

And that, in a nutshell, is the only thing about winter for which I am grateful. My fingernails are metaphorically bleeding from all of the clawing at the walls of winter I have been doing with my mind.

Song: "Because" The Beatles. But really you have to listen to the rest of that side of Abbey Road all in one sitting. I also love "Golden Slumbers." But I'm just repeating myself now. I've already been through a long and painful Abbey Road addiction.

cottage country canada (dead fish)

Thistle

Tomorrow: Seedy Saturday Toronto.

Tonight: Jamel Shabazz Kodak Lecture Series, Ryerson University, 7:30pm.

Song: "Joy Inside My Tears" Stevie Wonder

Decorative II

I woke up with an air of excitment today. My favourite gardening event, Seedy Saturday is this weekend and I've been working in a manic flurry to complete my long and ambitious list of preparations. I've thoroughly enjoyed working with my hands this last week. The last few months have been caught up in constant cerebral-ness, sitting at the computer pulling up the wit, and standing in front of groups of people working to entertain and educate. It's been so nice to use a different part of my brain for an extended period of time. I like the solitude and the sense of accomplishment as I hold each new object or item in my hand. I feel confident in the skills I have acquired and a sense of ease in spreading ink across a screen, cutting paper with a knife, or manipulating cloth through a machine.

I like to make. I have always been a producer. I woke up at 4 am this morning and could not get back to sleep pondering whether or not there was ever a time when I wasn't making something. I can't not make things. There are parts of my brain that would die without the exercise. What I worry about is how production and identity intersect. I think it's important to separate our identities from money and even sometimes production. I am a producer but that's not the sum of my value as a human being. It's tricky because people like me dream about a day when we can focus all of our time on making. But making as a job and making because you can't not is rife with contradictions and struggles. And when you start to associate all of these with identity it can get really hairy.

So the question is, Who am I outside of all of this? I will admit that I haven't figured it out yet because I still associate my identity too closely with what I produce. And sometimes, at a cost to my value as a person, how much I am paid for it.

I Wish

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I could break all the chains holding me
I wish I could say all the things that I should say
Say 'em loud, say 'em clear
for the whole round world to hear.

Well I wish I could be like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be if I found I could fly
I'd soar to the sun and look down at the sea
And I'd sing cos I know - yea
And I sing cos I know - yea
And I'd sing cos I know
I'd know how it feels
I'd know how it feels to be free
Yea Yea I'd know how it feels
Yes I'd know
I'd know
How it feels
How it feels
To be free

Written by Jazz pianist William Taylor and Richard Lamb.
Sung by Nina Simone

We're loving the British crime drama Life on Mars. I was completely won over by episode 5 (season 1) which ended with this song. A nice surprise that caught me off-guard. Episode 7 ended with "Sinnerman." Someone in charge of music likes Nina Simone.

White House II

But what is truly sinister about the positivity cult is that it seems to reduce our tolerance of other people's suffering. Far from being a "culture of complaint" that upholds "victims", ours has become "less and less tolerant of people having a bad day or a bad year", according to Barbara Held, professor of psychology at Bowdoin College and a leading critic of positive psychology. If no one will listen to my problems, I won't listen to theirs: "no whining", as the popular bumper stickers and wall plaques warn. Thus the cult acquires a viral-like reproductive energy, creating an empathy deficit that pushes ever more people into a harsh insistence on positivity in others.

- from "Pathologies of Hope" by Barbara Ehrenreich in Harper's (Feb 07)

Take a look at this fantastic article pointing to the folly of North America's over-zealous positive-thinking industry. Ms. Ehrenreich's criticism is filled with lots of insightful quotes, however beyond the conflict with reality posed by concepts like "manifesting [insert your choice of money, power, happiness]" or the cultish fanatacism inherent in what is fundamentally a money-making industry that equates money with success (and what road does that lead us all down?), I elected to post the quote above because it cuts to the heart of why the Cult of Positivity is a big fat negative for humanity.

I don't love to be around people who consistently wallow in a deep pit of self-pity and fatalism either. I believe in personal choices and responsibility. I also believe that shit happens and that we don't all start out on an equal footing. This rush to fill up the world with a constant stream of happy happy joy joy presents a profound disconnect with reality and an overall feeling of alienation and intolerance that is alarming. And furthermore, it's really easy to see through people who subscribe to this cult. They seem to think they are a strong beacon of light in a dark world but they always come off as one-dimensional, phony, and as shiny as a sugar-glazed donut.

Decorative

Squirrel Crossing

Looking forward to a sweet, sweet day of rest (minus 1 hour) before the mad rush into spring continues. I know it's dull as all to read blogs that publicly list mediocre missions such as, "Must clean desk" but holy crap there could be dead things buried under here for all I know. The end of print, my ass. If print has died, it has made its final resting place on or around my desk.

Tree Flowers

Overheard just moments before taking this picture:

"I chop your motherfuckin' Paul Bunyan ass down to my size... with just my mouth." (3rd St & Ave C. A Woman talking to another woman)

Song: Definitely "Show 'Em Whatcha Got" Public Enemy. I feel like I'm getting ready to go to war rather than to speak at a garden show.

Unfortunate Pier

I'm giving two different presentations tomorrow and Saturday here in Toronto.

Song: It's a toss-up between "Louder Than a Bomb" Public Enemy and "Father to a Sister of Thought" Pavement.

Service Station II

The Way We Were by David Sedaris - I read this while sitting in Powells (Portland) enjoying a too-late-in-the-evening-cappuccino and laughing out loud.

Song: I frantically dug out Burt Bacharach's "Living Together" album this morning, having been suddenly overtaken by the feeling that life could not continue until I heard "Something Big."

Big Flag

The Struggle Continues

This is a community garden called La Plaza Cultural in New York's East Village. I kinda screwed up the exposure on this one and will post some nicer images soon, however I felt the content of this photo seemed most appropriate for today.

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I've been loving my job recently. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do and care more about this work than I can express. Some people have assumed on first glance that I am a negative person because I talk somewhat openly about some of the struggles I have had trying to navigate this job... whatever it is that I do now. It's awkward not having a title. I never know how to answer that "What do you do?" question and none of the titles that have been given to me have come close. I feel like if I don't express both sides of my experiences then I am setting myself up to feel alienated and alone. It's bullshit, this desire people have for life to be so one-sided. I think I am stubbornly optimistic. I never would have stuck this out for so long otherwise. That's okay. I am learning and defining who I am on my own terms and am slowly becoming much less inclined to be overwhelmed by the perceptions of strangers.

At times all of this has been fucking hard. I go through long periods of extreme doubt. I am constantly bumping up against my fears. These last few weeks have been busy. In the past this particular kind of busyness has been overwhelming. There have been times when I have felt crippled by the demands of others and am resentful that they want a piece of me but don't seem to want to give me a fair return. But over the last few weeks that pressure has slid off my back and I am enjoying myself more than I ever thought possible. This feels good and right -- I am not slogging away for nothing.

There have been times when I have been afraid that this isn't the right thing for me, or that inversely I am not the right person to take this on. I tell myself that I don't deserve it. I am too much. I am not enough. I am an outsider. I will never be accepted if I continue to insist on being myself.

But recently it has felt right. All of this makes perfect sense. I am not the loner hiding in the corner at my own party.

BOWERY

While in Portland, we spent at least an hour one evening pouring over photo books in the art section at Powells. Photo books are notoriously expensive to buy but I came away with one book I had to have as soon as I saw it, a documentary project called "Flophouse: Life on the Bowery" that chronicles the lives of flophouse residents on New York City's Bowery. The book features portraits by Harvey Wang alongside stories told through the mouths of the men depicted. I can't tell you how struck I am by this book. The photos are beautiful, compelling, emotional, sometimes quiet and contemplative, and sometimes really intense. The stories are heartbreaking but the thing that stands out the most to me is how many of the men talk about running away: some running from other people, and most running away from themselves.

Amidst an assortment of different types of photos the one that stands out most to me is a contrasty black and white image of a man shot from behind as he decends a staircase to a bright doorway below. I can't say why it moves me so much. But that's the thing about photos, the way an image effects individual people is so personal and subjective it's often hard to pinpoint why one image stands out more than another even when there doesn't seem to be a logical or educated reason. If I can't do this for myself looking at other people's photos, and often even looking at my own, how will I ever articulate what it is that I'm trying to do when I take pictures? I used to be able to write this kind of art world wankery so easily as a student but now that art of bullshittery is completely lost. I don't have the words. Can't make the sentences.

There is a photo of a man who died in his cubicle (the rooms don't really pass for "rooms" since they are literally big enough to fit a twin-sized bed and nothing more) in the book. We've already had a few discussions about it, as I imagine the people involved in the project must have as well. Sometimes I wonder what it means to make ugliness beautiful by the way a picture is framed, the way light is captured, by all the tricks one deploys to take a beautiful photo. I wonder if it's okay to do that or if we should focus on depicting the awful side of life in as brutally honest a way as possible? Is it a lie to depict ugliness with grace and beauty? Is it okay to feel good about taking a beautiful picture of a horrible subject? In the end I always seem to come around to the conclusion that that doesn't seem very honest either. I've had so many conversations, thoughts, and feelings about morality topics like this a lot over the last few months -- there have been countless guilty feelings and thoughts I have wanted to bring up here but never know how to articulate. The arguments are often very circular and come back time and time again to context and motive. Does what is in my heart come across in the images or is that subjectivity always going to get in the way of interpretation? And how do I live with that?

Chinese Garden

These kinds of formal gardens are the complete antithesis to my gardening style but I can still appreciate them for their artistry. The pathways at The Chinese Garden in Portland were incredible. I can't imagine the work that went into both designing and laying them down.

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"I Have Been Where You Are"

Brock (At Night)

Davin made a book of his photos called "I Have Been Where You Are" that is now available. I am very proud of him. It's a beautiful collection of images. Being a designer, he went above and beyond organizing them in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing and illustrates where he has been going in photography over the last few years. Websites are nice but the emotional impact is so much more when the work is edited down and presented together in print form. Books are good.