Still Life with History and Industry
Composition en Route to Georgetown
God I love the backs of trucks. Late afternoon winter light, a miracle around here, where foggy smudgy is the rule. A long drive to get supplies at Grainger, where all the men wear overalls and the women tuck their hair under hardhats and don’t smile much. I fell in love with this truck on Fourth Avenue South. My phone went low res, but after some finessing I think the compositional magic is clear. Renaissance light, theme and variation, and subject matter with a purpose: Workin, workin, get outta my way.
Wayfinding: The Walking Man Goes Shopping at Night
Still under the influence of the recent piece at NeuroTribes (how I wish I had thought of that name!) on the evolution of the first icons for personal computing. I am temporarily abandoning leaves and the druid-watch of autumn melancholies for pure urban you-r-here-nowness. When I am no longer in love with the Walking Man, when the affair is over, you will be the first to know. Meanwhile, here we are, being told what to do and when to do it, in this case: Stop, LookBothWays, go Forward, protected in the night, — to buy dinner.
This image was captured with a cellphone. No traffic tickets were incurred in the making, although it was close. I am going to enlarge this about a 20 or 30 times and print it and see what happens, to see if the intimate space of the phone can scale up and what that feels like. I do so love the 2 by 3 inch jewels of my Droid. Perhaps we will return to the age of stereoscopes, and entire museum exhibits will be set up to witness modern life in the Victorian mode.
“There is a Crack in Everything…That’s how the Light Gets in”
I can’t shake the November state of mind today. The lowering skies, the gusting winds. The pond and the rake. The maple tree that has grown for 12 years along the south side of the water has that fatal illness of maples, with black rings inside its branches. This is the last year I will stare into its red lanterns in the summer afternoons, and sift its colors from tangled lillies and gravel in late Autumn.
On a recent aftrnoon the light fell in such a way that it looked like this, like a cliff, and an abyss, and a refuge, that crack in Leonard Cohen’s wonderful bell, the dark and somber and jubilant Anthem:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
Eulogy
This morning the lawn was brilliant with yellow leaves and a windy light. By late afternoon the sky had darkened, and snow is predicted tomorrow. I looked at the fallen lillies and melting hostas, all the garden’s brave last gasps of color, and laid my head upon the memory of summer. Where is that attic bedroom, that one with chenille bedspread and the embroidered pillow? The one where afternoon light motes were gold as pollen and the bees gathered in the windowsills….?
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