… as i walk, i am thinking about the “Girls” photo project i wrote about yesterday… the question arises, is the male gaze no longer to be shunned?… do young women feel they can handle the gaze, even provoke it, and still be appreciated as more than sex objects?…

The Journals of Denton Welch

… the war injects itself more and more… deaths on the front… V-1 (doodle-bug) rocket bombs starting to fall…

_On Thursday last I went towards the river and I saw truck after truck with a huge red cross on it winding slowly along the road — quite 50 of them. And I thought of the soldiers inside — their wounds and torn bodies.

I picnic by the river in the boiling sun, in only my shorts; then I bicycled right along the banks until I felt the sun burning into the dip between my shoulder blades.¹

… these two paragraphs together are surprising… DW observes the war from a distance, getting on with the pleasures of his life… it’s quite the juxtaposition…

… DW talks about Italian prisoners of war roaming the countryside and going for swims in the streams… no POW camps?…

… DW picnics all the time… the war seems of little consequence and concern, impinging on him daily and sometimes dangerously close, but his reporting of it is like the reporting of a minimal nuisance, like a mosquito… he sees it but it seems to have little impact… one wonders if he ever thought of volunteering his time?… if so, he never mentions it… overall, he seems very self involved… on the other hand, aren’t journals the place where we get to be self involved?…

_ in the past through the barley field by East Peckham sluice gates I found a little flat red stone or piece of glass with a masonic symbol on it; and I have put it in my pocket for my fortune. Up above, the doodle bugs are whizzing up to London with the guns banging black puffs in the sky.

Just in the river was a vicious plop, which is a spiked finger of shrapnel diving.²

… there is something surreal about the way he recounts all this… as if he is narrating a film, not actually threatened with death and dismemberment…

… woke up at about 2:30 AM… tried to go back to sleep… stayed in bed until about 4:30 AM… not sure how much of those two hours was sleeping…

… my weight is up… a steady trend now… i have to turn it around… fewer carbs will do it… hard to do when your spouse’s pandemic skill is baking…

… dogs in a tizzy this AM… all ready to hunt… made me think they smelled something… they ran out barking and tonguing, but settled down quickly… i think the cat playing hide and seek with them got them going… glad there wasn’t anything in the back yard… they have been skunked before, though it’s a bit late in the season for skunks to be out and about…

… i reread something i wrote yesterday and think, yup, got that one right… well written too… i am getting good at leaving a record behind… a somewhat compelling one too… though the evidence that anyone reads it is slim…

… S’s swim team won the Washington State high school championship… they qualified for one of the race finals and came in 16th but still scored a point for their team which was, apparently, their goal… they are only a freshman and will get increasingly competitive as they progresses through the grades…

… we are thinking to go for a drive this afternoon… maybe stop at our niece’s restaurant for a late lunch…

… HCR crapped out, but not before relating disgraced General Michael Flynn’s statement questioning why we shouldn’t be a Christian nation, what is so special about our vaunted separation of church and state… we are being overrun by nitwits… i believe more than ever before that religious belief is a blight on humanity…

… we made progress on the house this past week… we ordered a new storm door for the front… been wanting to do this for some time but struggled to get clear pricing from the various lumber yards we went to… we found one yard in Newburgh that simply looked it up in a catalog that all of them must have, should have had… everyone else had to call their distributor to get pricing… the sale goes to the one who can tell us how much on the spot… H says the lumber yard has good reviews from its customers… so far, we are satisfied…

… Fiona will undergo spay surgery this week… we had been worried she was heading into heat, but that doesn’t seem to be the case… it’s hard to think about such a sweet and loving dog going under the knife, but we are obligated to the breeder to do it, it’s better for her long term health, and perhaps she will be a bit less of a flight risk going forward… she is quite the escape artist, finding holes in the back yard fencing as if it were swiss cheese…

… bought some haddock yesterday… going to make baked haddock in tahini sauce with golden onions… i take a detour to look up the author of the recipe i have settled on, Helen Graves… she doesn’t call herself a chef… she is a “freelance food and travel writer, recipe developer and editor”… doesn’t quite fit with a site titled Great British Chefs… whatever… i install her blog feed into feedbin… also the Great British Chefs feed…

… at Trax on 52… pretty sure this will be go to coffee shop during winter… nobody stays in the space to have their coffee… all grab and go… Big Mouth is possible too, but the crowd builds up after 8:00 AM…

… a nice morning… sunny, no wind, warm enough… trees reaching peak color… maybe H and i should go for a drive… though rain later… Sunday will be nicer… i think i will propose it to H…

… walking along thinking about something J told me this past week… i told them M and i text daily… they said they tried that for a while but it didn’t last… they were to write each other what they were grateful for… that is very like J… i am not surprised that it didn’t last, it places a performance burden on the communication… sometimes a simple “are you there?…yes i am here!”… is enough… in fact, most of the time it’s enough…

… on to Feedbin…

… Jonathan Blaustein wrote about his trip to Chicago this morning… i learn about Weedmaps.com, for the weed dispensary near you… i look up what might be near me and find that it’s all medical marijuana in NY… weed was recently legalized for recreational use too, but i imagine the state is still working out the regulations and how to enforce them…

… overall, JB reported on numerous pizza restaurants which seemed to be the only food they ate while in Chicago… i mean, who eats pizza all weekend long and doesn’t gain a few pounds doing it?… not me… not at this point in my life… i try to eat healthier than that…

… i review the work of Leonardo Magrelli, published on Aint-Bad, and think, ok, but not compelling… all black and white, city environment…

… i look over, read, Proud, Provocative Portraits That Celebrate Feminine Authenticity… a woman photographer and stylist pursuing a project called Girls… an area of interest as anyone reading this blog will know… yes, interested because of primal programming, but also interested in the subject of how women are presented in photoland… i am especially interested in cases where women photograph women in ways that will, whether intended or not, provoke the male gaze… this set of photographs provokes the male gaze and seems intended to…

Albertine Photography Guen Fiore, styling Rubina Vita Marchiori

_ A new series by photographer Guen Fiore and stylist Rubina Vita Marchiori celebrates the fearless authenticity of Gen-Z women_¹

… the article tells us the women are photographed in their own homes (a safe environment)… the broad message, i will present myself as sexy if i want to, i am in control of that… a legitimate question to ask, does this promote women as much beyond being sex objects?… my answer, i am not sure… apparently there are photo sessions with each woman, that, presumably, lead to multiple images… are they all laced with sensuality?, showing the women in states of partial undress?… are they presented in any other way?… the artist’s instagram account suggests otherwise…

… i look at some of the comments on one post… that the women are “hot” is appreciated… the photographer has 34.5k followers… did they build that following with these images?… yes, almost all the images are attractive young women displaying their bodies in sensual, sexual ways… the following has been built on the fact that “sex sells,”…

… it think what bothers me is not that the women are presenting themselves sensually, sexually, but that it is a celebration of “fearless authenticity of Gen-Z women… only if women are to be defined by their sexuality… so the project tries to be high minded, but isn’t at all…

… I came to dinner last night… i served a roast chicken (one i helped raise and slaughter), Emily’s English roasted potatoes, salad of frisée and lardon with bacon vinaigrette dressing… H made oatmeal cookies for desert… we had a good time trying to solve I’s struggles finding a suitable love interest… they are a particular sort of person… they are possibly commitment phobic… but they don’t want to be alone either…

… as generally happens when there is company, i had a little too much to drink… not feeling too much “the worse for wear” this AM… having climbed into bed at 10:00 PM i had hoped to sleep in a little but i came awake at 4:00 AM and never really got back to sleep… out of bed at 4:45 AM

… fog this morning… i wonder if it will persist past sunrise…

… i keep thinking we may be heading for authoritarian rule, or oligarchic rule… people around the world live their lives under such systems… does the average person do ok?… i don’t know…

… HCR meter this morning suggests the noose is tightening around 45 Administration officials… we are getting to the point of holding individuals accountable and i wonder if we will be able to… to this point, we have not… i fervently hope people start going to jail…

… wow… every now and then i hear a song for the first time and it completely blows me away… Billy Bragg’s Mid-Century Modern is one of those songs…

An article on inflationary pressures…

… in the back of my mind i have been thinking what the article argues… that the flood of money washing through the population has led to higher prices, or dollars that are worth less… the article says it was predictable, though also says there are other factors at work… it bemoans government intervention due to the pandemic, but really, some action on the part of the government was necessary in my humble opinion…

… i wonder about the new hard infrastructure bill spending and the soft infrastructure bill spending should it be passed…

… i worry that the escalating price of goods will dominate the psyches of people, rather than the demonstrable, but less viscerally felt, improvements in their general condition… new and repaired bridges and roads won’t be noticeable for some time to come… a lot of it not till after the current administration has expired… hopefully more employment and better wages will happen quickly to improve the mood of the public…

… i have commented to H that i haven’t perceived a significant escalation in prices in our grocery buying (which i am largely in charge of)… but maybe i have, and because we are resourced, i haven’t noticed it as much… i have been writing down what we spend so i suppose i could go to the data and see…

… my theory has been that we buy from the high end sources where prices are already high, so maybe prices don’t need to escalate as much there?…

… Reason.com is libertarian in orientation, is a strong supporter of unfettered free markets and a strong proponent of minimal to non-existent regulation of the market… i would expect them to blame the Biden/Harris administration more than the set of conditions brought on by the pandemic, which were inherited… i wonder what The Economist will have to say about this issue…

Big Mouth Coffee Roasters…

… rain deluging the roof of the coffee shop… barista and customer exchanging comments about the rain then going on to discuss what they are doing, where they are living… i learn the barista recently moved up from Tennessee… the rain continuing to pour down in waves… barista is a young black woman with a zoftig venus statue figure… they wear a blank expression on their face, maybe as defense from judgmental looks, but when i talk with them they light up a bright smile… i make note of their accent, which is not southern, is educated, suggesting middle class, upper middle class upbringing…

… M reports their foot may be broken, or at least sprained… they will see the podiatrist today… i tell them i hope it is sprained, not broken…

”I Shot The Sheriff!”

… but i did’nt shoot no deputy…

… [this is an interesting court decision](https://reason.com/volokh/2021/11/11/court-should-start-with-a-presumption-that-art-is-art-not-a-statement-of-fact/ “Volokh, Eugene, “Court Should Start with a Presumption That Art Is Art, Not a Statment of Fact”, Reason.com”) about whether an artist’s work, in this case a rap song, is admissible as evidence that the artist did what they are accused of doing… Muadhdhin Bey-Cousin, a rapper, maintains he was wrongly arrested, convicted and jailed… he is suing for damages… counsel defending the officers are(is?) trying to submit song lyrics as evidence of a truthful depiction of the incidents that led to his arrest… the judge ruled that artistic product cannot be used to determine truth or falsehood of a question at issue, since the very nature of art is to embellish on experience to transform it into something transcendent… therefore, there is a high burden on the part of those wishing to submit art content as evidence that there is strong reason to believe the artwork in question is factual and not embellished…

… among the examples cited was the Bob Marley song that is the title of this post…

… from the decision:

As a society, we have decided to encourage free expression in all its forms. The Court will not adopt a rule that might undermine that goal. It therefore adopts a rule that presumes that artists tell stories, even when they draw inspiration from reality. Officers Cherry and Powell have not overcome that burden, so the Court will grant Mr. Bey-Cousin’s Motion and preclude evidence of his lyrics…¹

… the dogs wake up… i let them out of the bedroom… follow them downstairs… let them out… Chas seems particularly anxious to go out and is first, followed by a more lackluster Fiona… i wash some of last night’s dishes and wonder why i am not hearing whining at the door to come in… when i finish the dishes, i open the back door and Fiona strolls up the driveway, the stairs, and in… Chas is nowhere to be seen… i do a few more things around the kitchen then go back to check on Chas… he is waiting, but not whining… he walks in slowly, saunters into the dining room, then turns around and saunters into the kitchen… he is usually much more enthusiastic about the treats he gets in the morning… i offer him the aforementioned treats… he takes them but then spits them out… it appears he is not feeling well… refusing treats is extremely unlike him… we will have to keep an eye on him…

… today a new pair of flannel (or maybe fleece?) lined jeans will arrive… i have been looking for them all week, even though shipping information said firmly it would be today that they arrive… i chose the slow boat to save money… it amazes me how much we look forward to receiving the things we purchase online… it’s like little Christmases, birthdays and anniversaries all year long… ahh, the psychology of acquiring things!… i ordered these jeans to have a second pair to alternate wearing during the winter months…

… it strikes me that one of the reasons more people aren’t up in arms about the possibility of authoritarian rule is that things are largely behaving the way they normally do and “authoritarian rule” is an abstract concept… the majority won’t object strongly enough until it is too late…

… yes, titled posts when i am reading and writing about a book or an article… it makes sense then…

… this passage:

When you long with all your heart for someone to love you, madness grows there that shakes all sense from the trees and the water and the earth. And nothing lives for you, except the long deep bitter want. And this is what everyone feels from birth to death.¹

… i suppose he is really thinking about unrequited love… my experience of love that is in any way returned, is that it is sweet, not bitter, even loves that can’t be consummated…

… DW’s torment over Eric…

And we had prawns and lettuce hearts and partridge eggs, and macaroni, and plum flan and peppermint cream and coffee and apple juice.²

… what a curious menu…

… on the sixth of June, he notes “that the invasion had begun on Northern France”³… the war doesn’t figure much in the journals even though they are written entirely within the war… i am trying to imagine living in Europe during WW II, keeping this journal, and saying very little about it… did he really pay so little attention to such a consequential unfolding of history?… was he really that self involved?… even this mention of the invasion is one made in passing…

… and now it seems the Northern France invasion has made ignoring the war all but impossible…

_ I thought it was strange to sit with elderly ladies in such a clean, such a Tudorized house with radiators and frigidaires, while the most unspeakable atrocities were happening in mass is only 100 miles away at least._⁴

… went to bed a little after 9 PM last night… slept to about 4 AM with wakefulness at 2 AM… not feeling terrific this AM, but excess alcohol is not the culprit… only two beers last night… beer is looking more and more the route to go… that or no drinking at all…

… during the night wind and rain moved in… i especially heard the wind as i was trying to sleep…

… I coming to dinner tonight… planning to roast a chicken (that i helped raise and slaughter), fix some kind of potatoes and make a bitter greens salad, perhaps with the green olive anchovy dressing that is so yummy… might throw in a tomato or two from the garden… yes, we have some late harvest tomatoes that, miraculously, are slowly ripening… they don’t taste as good as those that ripen in August-September, but better than store bought…

… i am remembering that i should have gotten notification of a car payment due, but haven’t… will need to check on it today… there have been issues with payments set up to automatically draw from our bank account…

… just before going to bed, a story about Max Cleland on Rachel Maddow… war hero, triple amputee, by all accounts, a good person… the kind of politician that used to be more common, not as addicted to power, more interested in getting things done, serving his constituents… he was unseated by a Republican in a brutal campaign that accused him of cowardice… decorated veteran, triple amputee, accused of cowardice… that’s the sort of cynical politics that has me despising politicians in general… wherever there is power to be gained, the most despicable kind of behavior ensues… ethics and decency have no place in that world… is it any wonder the country is coming apart at the seems when we-the-people allow ourselves to be pushed into tribal silos that elicit the worst from us?…

… tribal silos, it appears, make easy sales targets in all sorts of ways… in big picture thinking, what does this mean about humanity in general that we are easily corralled into tribes that allow for pinpoint marketing?… and that making us angry about something is a very easy way to congregate and target us… is this a no longer useful appendage of human behavior… or is it the way we will be organized by the cosmos into a whole that is greater than the straight forward sum of the parts?… it is this kind of thought that makes me want to read Sex, Ecology and Spirituality again…

… i was recently thinking that i might want to get involved in helping out in elections in 2022… maybe help the Democratic party… but then i realized, i don’t want to be expected to be loyal to the cause… i want to be able to look at the ideas and policies and concerns of both sides and arrive at nuanced positions about the right way to proceed… i am simply not a my-tribe-right-or-wrong kind of person…

… i think i may have hit on something with no title posting… just notes, tagged for future revisiting…

… commentator on tv saying “if we get an authoritarian government in 2024”… how did we get to a place where we have to take that possibility seriously and plan accordingly?…

…strange, beautiful, compelling… im-hole by aya

… we celebrate veterans today… thank you for your service…

…feeling frustrated… slept late… unable to pursue the morning routine fully… more interruption later today… the prime issue is the increasing difficulty i have staying focused on photography and writing… so many interruptions at a time in my life when i ought to be able to say no to most of them… there is little that i have to do… the beauty of not having to actively produce an income…

… as i walked this morning, i wondered why i feel compelled to title my posts… this blog is Notes On Attention Paid, is it not?… notes don’t need titles… notes only need tagging for significant content i may want to revisit down the road…

… i am in Big Mouth Coffee this AM… i haven’t been here since the pandemic became a thing… it stays empty and people widely dispersed… it’s a big space… easy to keep distant… coffee is good too… BM moves high on the list of places to stop in and get warm during the winter…

… squealing jazz music playing… unlike the quasi corporate music in Kitchen and Coffee… i get the impression employees are permitted to choose the music… it makes the place more idiosyncratic…

… M sends the usual morning text except they report falling in the bathroom last night… not good… they don’t sound hurt… nothing broken they report… still, they are senior and living alone… i am wondering if they need some kind of Life Alert system to call for help if they need it… will have to discuss with J this afternoon…

… up at 5 AM… an hour later than i like… this jams me up on the things i like to do prior to heading out for a walk…

… there is research that suggests there are heart benefits to going to bed between 10 and 11… i have been trying that but i am not sure it is working for me… i had been going to bed between 9 and 10 with the desire to be up by 4 AM… this gives me a good amount of time to write and read in the morning… so maybe that is my rhythm… i’ve always been early to bed and early to rise…

… an exhausting day devoted to errands for the household… i have been very frustrated with the way activities that are not photography, reading and writing are intruding an hours devoted to those things… it has been a real struggle lately to keep that from happening… today, J will claim a certain amount of my time… tomorrow, a friend for dinner, which will require an early start on dinner prep… sigh… there are times when i’d like to take off to a cabin in the woods and hibernate… i’m quite good at being alone…

… HCR meter, ominous rumblings in Europe… Russia threatening Ukraine… Russia and Belarus pumping immigrants into Poland in an effort to inflame right wing dissidents and destabilize the region…

… i was thinking about the benefits of having lived in a pretty stable country… there have been times of unrest, but generally speaking, the average citizen could go about their business and depend on the world around them to behave pretty much the way it did the day before… there are so many people around the world for whom that isn’t true… what must be the loss in human product and accomplishment?… are we heading into a time where the world will twist and turn in ways we can’t possibly predict?… where faith in anything is impossible?…

… Cape Malay Pickled Fish for dinner last night… two days of marination in pickling juices… it was tasty… not clear that i would go to the trouble again… maybe…

… i did a search for recipes for CMPF and discovered a bunch of them… it appears i used the only recipe (from Martha Stewart), that fries the fish after marinating in the pickling juices for a couple of days… every other recipe cooks the fish before marinating… hmmm… i now have to cook this again…

… feeling happy again… my writing and photography are making sense this morning…

… a moment of terror… big vicious sounding dog approaching from behind… starts snarling and barking… thank the cosmos it’s behind the fence i walk along…

… i decided before walking out the door that today would be halfway up Mt. Beacon day… the potential symbolism of doing so on a Wednesday, aka “hump day,” is not lost on me…

… thinking about the Salon last night… the work of one photographer occupied the space between time lapse and detailed investigation of lake terrain… it wasn’t either, though intent seemed to be the former, not the latter… i think of the Movie Smoke and the photographic series Harvey Keitel’s character made…

… i made it to my usual spot… stream burble-gurgles by with a hissing undertone…

… i make a series of selfies…

… i like my look this AM…

**colored leaves flutter to the ground– distant jet plane sound

… a review of Titane in Hyperallergic… i wonder if H will be interested?…