Some Candidates for a Show
Good grief! I’m participating in a group photography show opening next Friday, June 18th and the finals selections aren’t even made yet. But here are some possible candidates. More details coming very soon!
The Industrial Age
One of the last images my little Nikon D40x took before the shutter refused to budge anymore.
This last weekend was jam-packed with activities and photo ops. It started on Saturday with a whole day and evening sailing in San Francisco Bay. Well, not quite sailing. We were a crew with only one current sailor, and a bay with strong winds and lots of white caps. So, the sails remained furled and the engine hummed. Nonetheless, it was beautiful day with none of the forecast rain, and all the anticipated excitement of seeing a beautiful urban landscape from a unique perspective. And that night, we watched the KFOG kaboom fireworks show from out on the water.
The next day we checked out Maker Faire for the second time. It sneaked up on us again, so we didn’t have the time or freedom from a certain Lego maniac to see as much as we wanted. Worse yet, there were no pictures taken. The reason goes back to the previous day.
While otherwise glorious, there was sadness, too, during our sailing excursion. Above is one of the last pictures my little D40x took before the shutter mechanism quit working. There was suspicion that the environment led to the failure. But I was careful to keep it pretty dry and I don’t think it was out there long enough for salty air to penetrate the body and gum up the gears. I’ve searched for information online and it looks like quite a few people have experienced the same error. One person posted a fix. I just need to get some tiny screwdrivers to take the camera a little bit apart and apply WD-40 to a gear or two. I’m hoping for the best, though clearly, the camera was not built to last as long as this bridge.
Cold Tone Spring
880 South
I was going to say that lately, photography has felt like a struggle. Then I remembered that it isn’t just lately that it has felt that way. Last year I was talking to photographer and lab owner Seth Dickerman about a little creative crisis I was going through. At the time, I was shooting a lot, pretty indiscriminately, in fact. He said to me, “Sometimes, the hardest part is figuring out what you’ve got. Take your time and look at what you have.” He was talking about editing. My struggle at the moment is with inspiration to shoot at all. In a way, the same advice applies. Even with a trickle coming in, there are still so many images to come back to, review, retouch, organize, and so on. Looking again at what you have can lead you to some ideas to develop further, and then off you go, shooting with a new focus.
As it turns out, I have several series I have started working on over the last couple years that remain unfinished. I could do with some more time spent organizing and editing, and post-processing. This led me to another little series: experimenting with a cold tone look on urban landscapes. It has a kind of nostalgic look, and almost a little corporate or government brochure feel in some cases, as in the image above, 880 South. This is just the start, so we’ll see how far I get and where it goes.
Three Along the 880
The W. T. Rawleigh Co.
New Street Light
Albany CA. 2010
I just noticed tonight that the street light right outside our house is different. It is is very white, almost blue light, and almost looks like LED. Then I noticed that several, but not all, of the street lights in the neighborhood have been replaced. It is easy to tell, because the contrast with the old yellowish sodium lights is striking.
I thought a web search was in order to see if this was part of something significant. Sure enough, I found the following information in this PDF:
The City will be replacing all “cobra head” street lights in Albany from High‐pressure sodium vapor (HPSV) to LED. Approximately $400,000 in Federal Stimulus Funds (ARRA funds) for energy efficiency will be utilized for this project. This project has many “green” benefits including:
- CO2 reduction: 170,042 Kg/year
- Energy savings: 324,506 kWh/year
- First Year Cost savings: $28,374
They will be replacing over 600 of the old sodium lights. There’s also a lot said about improved visibility. It definitely seems much brighter out there. I hope it is not too much, since our bedroom window faces the street. On the other hand, I do like the quality of light much better than those terrible orangey sodium-vapor lights. It’ll make mundane neighborhood night photography much more fun.
Brighton Ave, Albany CA, 2010.
Bill Frisell and Friends
Wendy and I worked together at a small tech company for a couple of years. We’ve stayed in touch since then and recently she pinged me about getting together to catch up. She suggested checking out the first night of Bill Frisell’s residency at Yoshi’s Oakland. Sarah wanted to come along too, so we all got there early to have dinner and thereby get good seats for the show. It was actually the first time I’d eaten there, and I wasn’t disappointed. The calamari appetizer, the edamame and, the sushi were all really good.
I knew Wendy wasn’t a big Frisell fan, so I was a little surprised. But this was part of her project to do something different from her usual routine each day for a year. Luckily for her, Thursday night wasn’t experimental music night, but rather Frisell’s more country music-oriented project. The announced line-up included bassist Tony Scherr, drummer Kenny Wollesen, avant-guitarist Marc Ribot and pedal-steel player Greg Leisz, as well as a special surprise mystery guest from Nashville: Buddy Miller.
The result was a country set of songs layered with beautiful steel guitar work, extended harmonic space, and a sprinkling of Frisell’s melodic lines.With three guitarists and a steel player, there was not a whole lot of room for Frisell to stretch out, and I’ll admit to a little disappointment not to get more from him. Marc Ribot also contributed and sang several songs, giving the set a darker and noisier edge on several songs. Ribot plays guitar like a man having a seizure, and that angular energy gives you the feeling that something unexpected is going to happen any second.
With all that, Buddy Miller was really the star of this show. I had seen Miller when he toured with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, and enjoyed his work on that project, but I didn’t really get a sense of his depth. Last night was different. From his wonderful singing and solid playing, to his hilarious stage banter, he’s a great musician and tremendously entertaining.
Miller and Frisell have recently finished recording together in Nashville with a number of guest artists and singers. Much of this set consisted of songs recorded in that session. Needless to say, I’m already really looking forward to the CD coming out.
East Harlem Period
NY Petition for Paul Serafimidis, 1931
Two or three years ago I had a little jag of doing family research on the Web. It can be frustrating because very often, in between you and the information you want there is a lot of noise. And the noise isn’t random; it is designed to get you to pay for what you can usually get for free, or even just to search. My longing for lost youth and family identity has not yet reached the point where I will fork over money. For the time being, I satisfy myself with what can be found with free online searching. One day, I managed to get this little scrap of a scan with my father’s name on it. I have been meaning to do some more digging but never quite get around to it. Yesterday I came across it on my cluttered desktop, and I wondered if this address is still legit. So, naturally I mapped it on Googgle to check out the street view.
When I saw this, I immediately wondered what it might have looked like when my father lived there in 1931. I did some more searching to learn a little about the history of East Harlem. I noticed that right around the corner on 103rd St is St George-St Demetrios Greek Church. From what I can tell from Google street view, the outside it looks like a brick building with something of a byzantine motif. The inside does seem to be more like what one would expect in a Greek church. I wonder how long it has been there. I am quite sure that it wasn’t accidental that my father to settled somewhere near a Greek church or community. But in reading about East Harlem, I found mention primarily of Italians and later, Puerto Ricans, and after that African-Americans. Nothing about Greeks.
There is, however, something coincidental in this. This is the first time I have seen a church named for two saints rather than just one, and both are familiar names. Our church in Fresno was St George Greek Orthodox Church. Whenever I hear the name, I will always think of my parents and their many years of membership there. Sarah and I lived in Seattle for several years, and near us was St Demetrios. And we had dear friends who lived across the street from it. Weird. That’s all, just weird.
Anyway, I eventually had a melancholy train of thought about what it would have been like to sit in front of the computer with my father and show him his old neighborhood on Google maps. Would he be at all impressed? What would he think of being able to see it like that, to be able to travel virtually. I can just see him smiling and letting out a “Holy Toledo”, his eyes mere slits behind his thick glasses. We’d stay up late cruising the streets and searching for places he worked or lived or ate. And he’d tell me some of the same stories I’d heard many times before over the years. Only now I wouldn’t roll my eyes at them. I’d hang on every word.
For Thea Maria
My mother's two sisters, Thea Thespina (left) and Thea Maria (right) on either side of Theophanis when we visited Greece a couple years ago.
My mother’s sister, Thea Maria, died the other day. She was 101 years old and was the oldest of six children, Maria, Thespina, Eleni, Sophia, Efrosini, and George. Yes, five girls and finally a boy.
As their mother died very young, when my mother was only three years old or so, Maria took on helping to raise the other children. My mom told me stories about how hard she worked and how she was often strict with them. She also told me about how, while still a girl, Maria broke her ankle badly. In the hills of the Peloponese back in the 1920’s, there was not great medical care. The villagers set it as best they could and let it heal. But she was considered crippled after that. How crippled? I’m not really sure. What I do know is that she didn’t work in the fields after that, and she didn’t attract a mate. When she died this week, she had been living with her sister Thespina for the better part of 70 years.
They lived together in Thea Thespina’s house in Athens. Uncle George, the baby of the family, had lived around the corner and looked after the sisters. He bought groceries. He fixed things. He drove them to the doctor. He did a lot. He drove them from Athens to the village every summer, and back in the fall. The sisters spent summers in the village of Arbouna, in the family home, the home in which they were all born, until fairly recently. But Uncle George had been too ill to drive everyone around the last few years, and he finally passed away last spring. Neither George nor Thespina had children. As they aged, it fell to their nephew Taki, Thea Eleni’s son, to look after them all. Thea Eleni herself died more than 40 years ago.
Thea Sophia died in 2002. So now it is just Thespina, and my mother, Efrosini. Both have dementia, and my mom is a little worse, I think, though at 91 she is a good five years younger. My mom had a tough year last year, real tough. But she is bouncing back and doing surprising well right now. Who knows, she might have another 10 years in her.
All I know is that I wish I had gone to Greece more, paid closer attention, and knew more about my blood than I do. I suppose there is still time to learn a little more before the last two of the people that connect me to a different world and a different time are gone.
Misty Mountains, Mystical Morning
Looking south from St Nicholas Ranch into the Kings Canyon area of the Sierra Nevada.
Last week we attended the Winter Family Camp at St Nicholas Ranch. The ranch, run by the Greek Orthodox Metropolis in San Francisco, is located in Squaw Valley near the entrance to Kings Canyon National Park. It was the first time I had been to the retreat, after hearing about it for years.
We had a wonderful time at the family camp. The weather was perfect, but with moments of drama as above. We met Greek families from all over California, from the Bay Area all the way down past Los Angeles. We ate, drank, talked and played. It was great to experience the Sierras again; I have always loved those mountains and been missing them for a couple years. Saturday was spent sledding at Grant Grove. The kids loved that, but I was happy just seeing the giant sequoias, the biggest living things on the planet. They are simply awesome, in the original sense of that word.
The site also has a monastery with a dozen or more nuns. Thus, Sunday started out with the Divine Liturgy in the chapel at the monastery. This was an amazing thing. One enters an incense-filled cavern of gold, marble, and medieval iconography, and hears the etherial voices of the nuns. Huddled over to the right of the altar where you can’t quite see them, they stand and sing for hours, occasionally shuffling and moving things. Softly but quickly they weave their way through the liturgy. Colored light streams in from above. The mysticism of the Orthodox Church transforms everything. Suddenly, a pair of nuns emerge with small incensors the size of a genie’s lamp and fitted with sleigh bells, their faces dimly visible beneath their black scarves; shaking bells in time like a chant, they quickly and precisely float around to each of the icons stationed around the chapel, shimmying the smoking bells as they bow before each one. Just as suddenly they disappear behind the altar screens. The singers continue spinning their soft cloud of sound. Outside the fog slowly lifts.
Liber Prologi in Vitam Beatam
The music gear is set up but just sits there collecting dust. Why? Too much photography? Too much worrying about career? Too much domestic work to do? Too much facebook? Too much everything, really. The suggestion that some or all of it should go is realistic, but devastating just the same. I started the process of paring down, and piled up some things for sale or storage.
I decided I really still want to compose, so I also finally tackled getting my audio software up and running on the brand new iMac. The good news is that the recording software, MOTU’s Digital Performer, all works on OS 10.6, despite being two major releases old. The bad news is that the patch librarian/editor software for all my old synths doesn’t. It won’t run at all, and it doesn’t look like MOTU is really supporting any more. That’ll be a headache to solve.
In the meantime I came across some ambient pieces I had been working on a couple years ago. For some reason they all have working titles derived from works by Paracelsus. Here is a rough mix of the first one.
Click the link above to show the player, then click the pointer for playback.
Pin holder
Last year we moved mom to a board and care facility on account of her increasing dementia, and it was while we were emptying out her apartment that I photographed everything in it for my Family Heirloom Project. Among the items was this one: a little ceramic bowl.
I attended kindergarten at Del Mar Elementary School and had Mrs. Kasner. She was an older lady with fiery red hair. I liked her just fine, although she occasionally sent me to the “thinking chair” or, if we were out on the playground, the “thinking step” to think about something I had done. All that thinking; maybe that’s where I picked up the habit that eventually resulted in grad school in philosophy. My cousin Tommy claimed that she once told him he’d never learn to read and that he never got over it.
In any case, we did a lot of art projects in her class. For example, there was lots of finger painting. I still remember the first day when we were told to bring an old shirt of our father’s to wear while painting. We wore them backwards. I still managed to get paint all over myself. One day, we did a ceramics project. I made a small, simple bowl. I remember shaping it with my fingers, over and over again, trying to get it right. I never really succeeded, but eventually got something to hand over to Mrs. Kasner.
So, I made this little bowl, and painted it blue and black. On the bottom was inscribed “Nickie AM”, because I was in the a.m. class. I brought it home and gave it to my mom as a gift. She did a lot of sewing and needed pins to be handy. She was always pinning things up for alterations, or pinning patterns to fabric, and so on. So she kept pins in it. For 40 years or more that thing sat on her sewing machine with pins in it. After we moved my mom, it came to our house and sat on a bookshelf in the office. Without the pins, of course.
Just a few months later I was cleaning up around the side of the house where the trash and recycling bins sit. I saw a little patch of blue on the ground and a wad of neurons jangled in my head. It was so familiar. I picked up a little chard, then another and another. My heart sank.
What one kindergartener made, another demolished. (I know, it’s a metaphor for a natural process all children and their parents go through.) I don’t know exactly what happened, and never will, I’m sure. Somehow Theo got ahold of the bowl and it became a play thing, until it broke. I have to admit that at first I was pretty mad. But when i looked into that sad, confused little boy’s face, I knew I had to just let it go. I might have gone a long time, maybe forever, never thinking about that little bowl. I don’t know what I would have done with it anyway, other than allow it to be another piece of baggage to carry around the rest of my life and eventually leave to someone with no personal connection or emotional attachment, and hence free to take it to the Goodwill with all the other old crap. So, that came sooner in this case. I didn’t have to carry it around another 40 years. Still, I can’t help feeling a little loss, not of material wealth, but of a piece of the story—a little hole, just like the growing gaps in mom’s memory.
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