Movie Dreams

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Odd, it was last night that I dreamt it. Well, this is as close as I can remember the thing. There were people coming and going along the ramp. Zeotropolis has been gone a while. At least, um, maybe. It was an independent movie theater on the west side of the city. The owners were mellow people with such a love for what they did. Unfortunately, love couldn't book big buck movies. Still, it had a following. And good cheap buttered popcorn.
But none of that accounts for the dream. A couple of defeated city councilors were in it. One, everybody's fool, went around screwing folks. And they threw popcorn at him. And after awhile it stuck. So someone broke open a pillow. And we all threw feathers. He ran out, popcorned and feathered. And the movie ended. You Fruedians, does any of this have something to do with my mother? If I had an analyst, this'd giver her a laugh, huh?

Light Bursts

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A certain image can seem like a ball of light beneath one’s mouse – on the verge of bursting. And light is one of the most vivid dimensions of our experience. Leonardo wrote that a painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light. He felt that there was a value in starting with shadows. It is light that invents color, and color that finally bursts things into being. If existence is about being, then light is a necessary and moving condition.

Weight-Less

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After a century, the last animal bustled through the narrow room behind that window on the left. And the guy slid a final weight along the manual scale's bar. He jotted down the numbers, handed one carbon copy to a farmer to the other side of that low partition behind his chair, another to the shipper at the farmer's side. The weighman pushed his original into a folder, grabbed it, pushed back his chair and left for the main office some distance outside. He shut that door, picked up his check, and never returned.

The once-largest stockyard east of Chicago closed that day. See the last calendar on the right? The manuals, pencils and sharpeners, all sit the way they were left for a century of days at closing time. The man forgot his sweater,along with some personal stuff, it's still hanging in that closet back on the left. Since then, only dust has come each day to an office that's waiting... waiting for farmers, shippers and its weighman.

The office is patient.

Sfumato Depreciation

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Eighty years ago, in 1927, the Pennsylvania Railroad moved its main station from the very center of Lancaster city to a spot on the border. It was, as pictures of the day show, an unambitious new building. And for eight decades it's been worn into nubs by countless travelers. Twenty five years ago, Harrison Ford's hand grabbed this post in a movie called "Witness". Maybe they don't want to repair it out of sentimentality? Perhaps it's like the teenager who refuses to wash her fingers for days after touching a rock-star idol?
The station still works, and probably will until it tumbles. But its workers seem to love her. They've got the inside merrily decorated for the Christmas season. But I guess this little pictured post's beyond shining. Subsidized roads and airports have stolen the travelers away, and a financially struggling AMTRAK won't be soon around with polish.
For this little guy, at least, it doesn't look to be a happy newel year.

Chick Magnet

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We should have named this guy, "Aww..." That's what people call him, at least at first. I had a snapshot. I wanted to see if it could be made into a portrait. Here's the result. Does it work? Or is it still just a snap?
Regardless, this is Rocco. He's just over two years old. If you look back a week or so on the blog (November 27 = "Crow Droppings"), you'll see my VW spattered with bird poop. The city's startling the crows to get them to move on. They do it by shooting very loud rounds from a portable cannon. Rocco is sitting there quite concerned that the %$#@! cannon will explode at any second. He does not like cannons. Know what? Neither do I. I dislike crow droppings more.
Oh, the title of this piece? If you are looking to meet women, Rocco is the key. He has an astonishing way of drawing ladies from everywhere. Social life drooping? Get a Rocco.

Golden Meaning

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It's not so much that I shall die - but that everything else goes on. It's the party that I shall miss, the ideas, joy, art, music, greatness, achievement, answers,feelings, that won't happen on my watch. It's tantalizing to realize that now that we know so much about so much, that we can understand questions that were never before even anticipated. And that somewhere along the time line beyond ours... they will know answers and even more astonishing questions.

Monk

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We tend to think that a smiling monk has arrived in a place where we want to be.Everything about him seems to be cast in the same wonder. He's carried along on a tide of dreams, but are they his, or ours?

Sun Spill

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Saw this on Cape Cod in October. The sunrise caught by the morning dew makes a glimmering flow that's shuffled one way by the breeze and another by the sun's rising direction. The currents give me a buzz.

Christmas Door

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My wife's president of the Lancaster Historic Preservation Trust. We had friends from the board over for a little holiday thing tonight. Our wreath went up on Sunday. Lancaster doors are famous for their Christmas wreaths. Well, if not famous... content. Here's ours. Merry....

Marching Home

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This monument starts with the American Civil War and then adds ornamentation around its base for every succeeding conflict of any note. At the moment, they're preparing a spot for whatever it is Washington's calling the current business in Iraq (the last plaque was engraved "Dessert Storm"). Interestingly, there's still a passel of places for more plaques. Do you think, on the designers' parts, this was insightful or pessimistic?
Do you think those empty spaces are really, like, the designer’s editorial comment? If that’s true, was he a monument builder, or a social critic? Are those spaces indication of despair of our weaknesses, or confidence in our resolution to defend what’s good?

Me By Three

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Over at another website asked contributors to submit self portraits. Now these are all people with gordo photographic knowledge. The height of the steaks is (or is that "stakes"?) intimidating. There are contributors, for example, who are doing self portraits through pin-hole cameras somehow attached to digital camera bodies. Holy Fisheye, Batman!!
So what to do? I wanted to get a likeness of me. I wanted something showy... yet subtle. Elegantly arty.... Which at the same time would dribble technique, yet... yet still show something about me as a photographer... You know... intense, serious, yet approachably gentle, brilliantly humble, and of course sexually intense.
Unfortunately the Robert Redford who starred in The Sting was no longer available to be my stand in. Sigh.... So, I figured that I'd go for a low-key shot. Something with a lot of portentous (no... not PRE-tentious) shadows. Noir... I wanted to slather noir all over the thing. And color, but classy color, you know? Warm classy color.... SEPIA! Of course. But some intense, over-saturated chromes too. Something that says... "This guy glows! He's hot! And.... thoughtful... DEEEEEEEP!" But since you can't have intense color and sepia all in one shot... Okay... so I figured I'd combine them. And add a prop camera since that's what all this is about... And hands. Big hands to distract from my face (you'll recall the unavailability of Redford, right?).
And finally, an artsy crumble. After all the careful work (which is NOT retouched), why not show just how casual I am by aging the final print? So, I did that then folded in a couple of drop shadows to make it all pop.
And here it is... You want the technical data? Sure.....
DATA: Saturday, 12/02/06, 12:52 pm: Apple 17" MacBookPro w/ bundled PhotoBooth Application, Meter Mode Auto, Exposure Program: Normal, ISO Whatever, Lens built into the built in camera, built into the top of the monitor, Exposure: Wait three seconds and the screen flashes.

So? Wuddaya think? Izzis fun or flop?
Comments? Huh? Huh?

Purposeless

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Has anyone else noticed that the great northern U.S. cities are becoming seedy? As folks post images of Asian, European, Canadian, and Southern American cities - you see glimmer, high-tech and a patina of elegance. In the north, it looks as if the economic tides are receding, leaving behind shells, and detrius which still have the shape of their purpose - but their essence has left.
I wonder if bricks, cement, wrought and mill work have any way to miss their now dead functions? Look here, see how each was crafted to shape a hope, a dream, a plan? And now, urban weeds grow up as signage of abandonment. All over America there are bodies like these, not yet crumbling, not yet decayed... just lifeless... purposeless... Answers seeking questions. They're memories really. But they're not written in words, so they'll soon be like a melody carried in bits on the breeze... hardly heard, and increasingly unfamiliar.

Terioration

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I've heard that daVinci's Last Supper began deteriorating only months after it was finished. Apparently the north wall of the monk's refectory at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan was not entirely hospitable to the oil-and-tempera based medium the master used to paint the masterpiece.
Ironic then that this wall scribble is maybe a decade old on the southern wall beneath a railroad bridge going into Lancaster. While it rarely gets direct rain or sunlight, it's otherwise completely exposed to the temperature and humidity shifts of our part of the world. Yet it's still as bright and uncracked as it came out of the spray cans. Just as roaches will survive an atomic blast, grafitti will probably build the stories of the Fourth Millenium's archeologists. Don't you wonder what they'll conclude about us from these sort of things?

Lock Boxes

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It's said that it was Bobby Coyle that built them to house he and Cassie's wedding gifts until they returned from their European honeymoon.
On the Titanic.
It's said that it was Cassie Costello who wanted the metal strong boxes built with opaque glass doors so her things would smile in the sun until she came home.
It's said that since that long ago time - no one has seen them smiling.

Neon Night

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The smoker's haven't gaggled here yet. They will.
You look at this place and you know it's a city because rural spots don't have "out-backs" like this. And you know that very nearby there are girls in short skirts, and guys who like girls in short skirts accompanied by a driving bass.
And you know that a neon back alley and a driving bass behind a club are as much a pulse beat of a city as blue skys and brook babbling are to the country. And the cool thing about Lancaser is that it is minutes away from both.

Life? Down There?

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In the late 19th century all applicants for a civil service job had to submit to a phrenology examination. A phrenologist searches among the bumps on your head for information about personality. Now there are new designer proceduress for making strangers less strange. Are they similarly bogus? The only thing between us and the bogus is the scientific method... yet still we feel an irrational tug down alleyways where glimmering things seem to swirl.

Can you tell that my brain feels itchy today?

Crow Storm

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So the city has a new party in power and, well, just look. It's like Hitchock came to town with these people and pooped all over everything. Okay... now I'm not saying that the Mayor is personally responsible. But I have been listening to Al Gore, and he makes a lot of sense. And he says that The President and his Congress are causing hurricanes, and making it warmer and all. But I figure that The President can't just diddle into every state, county, township, or city, right? I mean, like, he's busy screwing up the entire world. So, well, who's left to diddle with little places like here? Which makes me wonder what the new City Council has been doing since January. After all, I've parked my car in this spot for thirty years and... And... Well, I'm just sayin'... You know? It do make you wonder... You think I oughta walk on down to city hall? Huh? Huh?

Facade

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Yesterday I showed you the wreckers who were digging around into the middle of something. I told you that they were banging and drilling inside of the very epicenter of the city of Lancaster. In fact where King and Queen streets come together is the town square - everything else radiates outward from an obelisk memorializing the county's Civil War dead.
And just behind that sculpture on the south-eastern corner sits the county's grandest building... what was the Watt & Shand department store. The wreckers are disemboweling it to create room for a grand new hotel and a convention center. But, with the care of a diamond cutter, they're preserving this radiant vista.

Wrecking

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And tomorrow I shall post what they are digging behind in the very epicenter of historic Lancaster City. In the interim you might notice that this guy is looking at stuff that hasn't seen sunlight in well over a century. Those fire escapes to the right? they were hidden in a dank, grim alleyway - and you'll note they were appended quite a while back. Apparently the original structure was built for access from this side, but later structures which have just been demolished closed off horse-drawn deliveries. This walkway is wonderful, the best view in town to what's turned out to be an archeological surprise.

Cubey Alleyway

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Charles Demuth was called a Precisionist painter. As far as I can tell, that was like a flavor of cubism. Demuth was born in Lancaster in the late 1800s. It's not clear that he loved his city. It is clear that many of his masterpieces which hang in the world's greatest museums were impressions of Lancaster, PA. His family home and business were a block from where I took this picture today. He undoubtedly knew this place. Lancaster uses its alleys putting important front entrances on them. A recent remodeling to 100 Christian Street created this doorway sculpture literally in the shadow of 18th century steeples. It's State Senator Armstrong's office. He chairs the Senate Appropriation's Committee. See, this city really uses its alleys. Judging by the way Demuth saw everything else, well I sense the ghost of his brushes dancing all about this, and so much of his town.