CursiveBuildings

The Rules In photography, focus is a kind of virtue. You figure this out on your own from the...

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:03:13 -0800

The Rules In photography, focus is a kind of virtue. You figure this out on your own from the...

What Kind Of Man Am I?Before last week, I hadn’t eaten even a trace of peanut in more than a...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:23:23 -0800

What Kind Of Man Am I?Before last week, I hadn’t eaten even a trace of peanut in more than a...

Photo

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:47:56 -0800

YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE EMPEROR (a small study of time)

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:05:00 -0800

FREE DOWNLOAD HERE - a short book in pdf format

Roses are red, violets are blue& Babe the Blue Ox is looking...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:00:43 -0800

Roses are red, violets are blue
& Babe the Blue Ox is looking at you…

The Long Haul (part ii) Beneath much of San Francisco’s financial district, especially the...

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:24:36 -0800

The Long Haul (part ii) Beneath much of San Francisco’s financial district, especially the...

Matea wrote: In fifth-grade I won a regional essay contest. Everyone in the class was required to...

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:11:00 -0800

Matea wrote: In fifth-grade I won a regional essay contest. Everyone in the class was required to...

We went to an early show today at the Roxie after a many-coursed...

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:03:00 -0800

We went to an early show today at the Roxie after a many-coursed breakfast of our own creation. The theater was largely empty… save for us & a few addled old hippies. But, onscreen, L.Cohen was still 35 & still full of song & poetry & his vast & sad, sad hope. We watched alongside 600,000 kids in 1970 & a contemporary smattering of pop-spilling, popcorn-eating boomers, who did not seem hopeful anymore.

PS (pointless sighting/statement). Seems like he borrowed his amplifier equipment from The Who, a great old band that played the same festival. The Who also played the Super Bowl recently. I think it’s worth noting that Roger Daltry still sings “hope I die before I get old” w/a straight face. By comparison, I think Cohen gives us a respectable map w/which to age honestly & gracefully as artists (or souls).

IN AN INFINITE UNIVERSE (look)

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:24:00 -0800

IN AN INFINITE UNIVERSE (look)

Saint Francis awaits Saint Valentine.

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:16:25 -0800

Saint Francis awaits Saint Valentine.

The Long Haul (part i) My Flickr Pro account expires today. This...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:50:27 -0800

The Long Haul (part i)

My Flickr Pro account expires today. This is the photograph that, underexposed at exactly the right time on a lazy walk home from the office 2+ years ago, earned me the pro account. This terribly lucky picture nearly wasn’t taken at all. In November of 2007, I wrote:

One week ago, I met the creator of Flickr on the street outside a small grocery & deli near my apartment. He was sitting in a plastic lawn chair w/a laptop balanced on his knee, a steaming cup of tea to his right on a wire-mesh table.

I was walking home from my office on a Friday evening, the lip of a weekend, plodding up the congested hills of San Francisco taking photographs w/my new Holga. I saw him - laptop, tea steam & all - silhouetted against the sunset, which was then dipping its toes into the Pacific Ocean beyond the hills of Pacific Heights.

I didn’t know it was him. I wanted to take a photograph of the silhouette. He looked so busy, though, that I walked right past & turned the corner to my block. But! Halfway up the hill, I paused. I turned around & looked over the city which spills out like overflowing robes from that height. It was beautiful. I have difficulties letting such opportunities pass w/out seriously troubling my mind. So I cursed myself for being such a bother & went down the block to pester the silhouette, hoping I hadn’t missed the moment.

I hadn’t. He was there. The fading sun was still there. The city, there. Everything. I approached meekly. “Excuse me,” I said. “I hate so much to bother you. But you are absolutely silhouetted perfectly against that sunset there, & I already walked by once & I had to come back. Do you mind if I take your picture w/this toy camera? I’ll probably screw it up anyway. It’s new. It’s film, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He nodded. “Um, sure.”

I snapped the plastic button & the film exposed & it was over. “Thank you so much,” I said & bumbled off. At least, I meant to leave.

“Hey,” he called. “Where do you upload your photos?”

“Flickr,” I said. “My website is sort of sleeping until I can get a new digital camera.”

“Oh? Yeah, I created Flickr.”

“Shut up.”

“No, really. My wife & I created Flickr in Vancouver a few years ago.”

He invited me to sit & showed me the backend of Flickr (which destroyed all remaining doubts in my mind… there are some rad things behind-the-scenes), telling me the story of its accidental origins from within a videogame company. Being an ex-journalist, I deeply appreciated such casual conversation on the street, knowing how often he must have to tell that story to newswriters all over the world.

We looked at my Flickr stream for a minute. I showed him the shot from when my old camera died, & he even ventured a theory as to why the picture decomposed as such… sensor stuffs. “I don’t know,” I said. “But that’s ok, I sort of love it.” He said it was definitely effed up.

In the end, I obviously did screw up this potentially lovely photograph. Of my entire first roll, this was the only one that didn’t turn out. Still I feel like I somehow didn’t miss anything.

True story.

PS. Maybe you noticed my new pro account? Stewart did that. Such a nice person! Thank you.

I cannot believe such a significant spell of time has passed since this day, since almost any single day of memory. Even the deepest pains look like gifts from far enough away, but this day was a gift from the very first moment.

(One thing I’m surprised I didn’t mention in the original caption was the surprising filters I saw on the backend of Flickr. Before he granted me the pro account, Stewart checked my account for a nazi-propaganda alert… Germany requested this feature, he said. Such is the world.)

"Phone-bone or sext me later."

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:55:30 -0800

“Phone-bone or sext me later.” - OVERHEARD in SF

A peculiar phrase, “kill your tv” meant...

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:03:13 -0800

A peculiar phrase, “kill your tv” meant “upgrade to flatscreen” in 21st-century America.

(via cellphone camera!)

The ease of mystery is astounding.

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:43:33 -0800

The ease of mystery is astounding.

Sticks & Stones The fire alarm in the bedroom begins chirping after a morning shower. Funny that...

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:55:03 -0800

Sticks & Stones The fire alarm in the bedroom begins chirping after a morning shower. Funny that...

On Care: Sometimes to win the argument is to lose the battle. This occurs to me. Lose enough battles...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:56:44 -0800

On Care: Sometimes to win the argument is to lose the battle. This occurs to me. Lose enough battles...

Mr. Eastwood has us lit up like a football game… serious...

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:50:00 -0800

Mr. Eastwood has us lit up like a football game… serious floodlights directly in the window.

Under This UmbrellaIt’s a persistently stormy January out...

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:00:00 -0800

Under This Umbrella
It’s a persistently stormy January out there. I’ve been sick for almost two weeks, shrugging off one cough syrup-soaked day for another. This morning my neighborhood was suddenly thick w/movie trailers - equipment trailers, food trailers, wardrobe trailers, star trailers, la lala la la. This shit is bananas… feels very cinéma vérité to exist w/in! The flick is called Hereafter, directed by Clint Eastwood & starring Matt Damon. I play the spaced-out, under-dressed kid w/the coughing fit.

"This weather is so post-communist."

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:56:00 -0800

“This weather is so post-communist.” - OVERHEARD in SF

1982 - Quality time w/my father.

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:09:18 -0800

1982 - Quality time w/my father.