… cold, cloudy… i am walking along thinking about restricting myself to iPhone and apps for a while… not using Lightroom for a while as my perspective continues to change on what i am doing, where i am going…

… for the longest time now, Brain Pickings has been a weekly part of my life, one of my principle sources of new reading that uplifts and informs and presents a both spiritual and rational way forward in life… it is, in some ways, a model for my Notes On Attention Paid blog…

… this morning i discovered Maria Popova has renamed it to The Marginalian… hmmm… the implication that her offerings are and have always been about the interstices and in-betweens of important thinking and feeling… finding what isn’t popular culture, but lasting and informative culture…

… i am not sure about the new name, it seems slightly pretentious to me while being a little too uncertain about it’s usefulness… i am absolutely sure about Maria Popova’s beautiful and inspiring offerings… so, i will go forward with her and maybe the name will grow on me and feel right… it’s her journey, not mine… i am just along for the ride…

… H’s bday a success, including gift i was worried about but had gambled on because i thought she would love it… and she did…

… my wireless keyboard is suddenly having sticky keys… a while back i spilled coffee on it and keys got sticky so i couldn’t use it… then i tried it and it was a lot better… now sticky again… the cold weather?…

… we drove to a really nice farm stand yesterday… would love to see it in full season… came back with a bunch of goodies… including really fresh ginger, garlic, some pasta, some mutton merguez sausage…

… HCR meter pointing up… largely about the epic battle Liz Cheney is waging on the crazies that have taken over the Republican party… apparently she is doing quite well with fundraising and the January 6th committee, which she co-chairs, is increasingly implicating 45 as having been intimately involved in the insurrection… of course, there are a bunch of people who haven’t lost their souls to the batshit crazy and always thought he was responsible…

… started reading the Haunting of Hill House to H last night… the goal is to try to finish by Halloween… not sure we will make it… more than 20 pages a night… if i forgo the alcohol, we might…

… i check the weather, need to harvest whatever herbs i will harvest today… rain and cold coming…

… i have all this camera equipment laying around… good equipment… equipment that has served me well… at the moment, just laying around… since the iPhone camera has started to deliver RAW format images of very high quality, it is my go to camera for everyday work, and i “work” every day…

… i am searching for a new voice, a different voice, with it… something suited to my concept of notes on attention paid… that is, when i am out and about, what do i notice?… what do i want to make pictures of?… it’s a journaling process and as such, i strive to make it part of my journaling effort… this effort…

… one of my great interests, women and photography… women as subject(object?), women as photographers, women as critics of photography, women as curators of photography, and on and on…

… this article in AnOther is a long list of women who have made important photobooks… well worth a gander if at all interested in photography and women photographers who have blazed trails…

… H’s birthday today… spent first hour of the morning wrapping presents and writing a card…

… my Amex card was rejected at a store yesterday… no reason for that as it is up to date and there is no spending limit… looked at the account this AM and there was nothing suggesting the reason for the rejection…

… alcohol last night… the end of the day got a bit tense and frustrating, the Amex rejection… cash flow tightness at a moment when i want to be generous… H in one of their self flagellating moods… how easily i run to the bottle at the end of the day if it’s been at all a tense one…

… today is a new day and we will have fun one way or another…

… slept through the night… woke up about 3:45, almost 7 hours sleep…

… i seem to be distracted this morning… time to move on…

… beautiful, near cloudless day… waning gibbous moon… light human activity… drumming circle starting to form… birds twittering… excitement over the sighting of an eagle… a man asks those closer if there is an eagle in the tree… yes!, the reply… he calls out to “Roger” across the way to tell him about the eagle… the man shuffles by on his way to get a closer look… i comment on “the eagle tree”… he tells me he used to bring his mom every day… i conclude his mother has passed or moved away or is otherwise not able to be brought to the waterfront anymore… i am touched by the humanity of the moment… the sound of drumming… the feeling of a sacred ritual… as i walk away, the sound of an eagle calling…

… what an interesting article in the Bulwark this is… Shirley Jackson… i feel i know this name, but not as an author of fiction, but for another area of accomplishment… a search on the www turns up Shirley Ann Jackson, an African American, a woman, a renowned Physicist… hmmm, not what i was thinking, but an interesting find…

… back to the Shirley Jackson of the Bulwark article… it is a curious article for the Bulwark, which is usually centered on current news and politics, but makes sense if you think of Halloween as news… after reading the article, i also think it might be a sidewise reference to current political times… James Harris, one of Jackson’s curious characters, is described as a sinister presence that can turn a person to their dark side with the most minimal of interactions, say, talking to them over the phone… shades of 45?…

… i will find out if H has read any of her books… i might undertake to read Jackson’s writings out loud to them as a b’day preset?…

… when i search for The Haunting of Hill House, the book, i also turn up the Netflix series which i feel certain we have watched… i look it up and become convinced we have not, or at least, i have not…

… i also discover that there is a movie made in 1963 that is considered by some to be a brilliant interpretation of the novel…

… H’s birthday week is coming together!…

… read the the jacket flaps… read a wikipedia article discussing the varying editions… i have the 1984 edition which is expanded but noted as having several misprints and misreadings…

… as i turn to the introduction by Michael De-la-noy, i take note of the small type and the length of the book, 371 pages… this will take some time…

… astoundingly, i learn he could not read until the age of 9, but traveled far and wide with his mother… his family was well off…

He was, as Edith Sitwell never tired of telling him, a born writer, and everything he wrote was written after he was condemned to death.¹

… just finished De-la-noy’s introduction… i am certain i will enjoy the journals…

… lots swimming around in my brain this morning… watched Derek Jarman’s The Garden last night… Senate Republicans blocked discussion on a pared down voting rights bill authored by Manchin who had claimed he could get ten Republicans to back it… that, since learning how to season and care for my cast iron pans, they have become my most used and loved pans in the kitchen… how well my Jelly Comb vertical mouse works and how all neck and shoulder pain in my mousing arm side has disappeared… that i will start the journals of Denton Welch this morning… that i had no alcohol last night and feel better this morning, though not as wonderful as the day on Block Island when i had no alcohol and drank sumac-aide, i was euphoric on that day, so i wonder, is sumac a tonic?…

… so, back to the top, The Garden, a strange and wonderful film… about repression of gays, especially by the church… about relentlessly invasive modern society… about capitalism’s relentless presence… the imagery, oh the imagery, so inspiring… so damn good… i had only an inkling of what the movie would be like from Modern Nature… knew that Tilda Swinton was in it… didn’t realize that Jarman himself appears in numerous places… the film concocted as a set of dreams… the landscapes of Dungeness spectacularly bleak and desert like, and in the shadow of a nuclear power plant… did he buy the cottage because it would make a fantastic filming location?…

… as for voting rights… ahhh the filibuster, whither the filibuster?… we are up against a wall, the moment when the country decides whether it is white, male patriarchal, or a multiarchy?… the numbers are on the side of the multiarchy, the power balance presently skewed in favor of patriarchy… what will be the outcome?… disaster, from my point of view, if the filibuster is not amended for arguably the most important historical moment of my longish life…

… cast iron pans, what a difference proper seasoning and maintenance makes!… i had always tried to take good care of them, but i finally learned how… past the basic seasoning routine (a thin application of grape seed oil, one hour in a 500 degree oven, repeat several times), learning to rinse with hot water, even soak briefly, has been transformative… then drying, heating up and application of a thin coat of oil before storing… that’s it… my pans are mostly non-stick and when they do stick, cleanup is easy… long live cast iron pans!… and they do, properly cared for…

… another piece of equipment that is working well is my Jelly Comb vertical mouse… i have been through so many input devices… this is the one that works and i love it!…

… the journals of Denton Welch… read the short bio on the cover flaps… somewhat sad but amazing figure… a bad accident when he was 20 partially paralyzed him and left him in continuous until his death 13 years later… reputedly a prolific and brilliant writer… he trended homosexual…

… about no alcohol… always feel better the next day… when will i be able to profit from that knowledge?…

… must see if i can buy sumac commercially… and i can… powdered for use in cooking, as tea, loose or in bags… the latter is expensive… i am going to check the health food stores for the tea, will order the ground version from Spice House…

… the horn of a freight train in the distance… Fiona exhales a deep breath while sleeping on the bed near by…

… train horn blasting in the distance… very insistent… beautiful colors in the sky…

… i pass by Lucky Thirty One clothing and marvel at the really bad purse choices of their mannequins…

… thinking about my cast iron pans this morning… i’ve gone from using them occasionally to using them all the time… they are fully seasoned, mostly non stick, have not required abrasive scrubbing in a long time, clean up easily… i have one more non stick pan to try to replace…

… a couple of crow/ravens arguing in mid air…

… insistent emergency sirens in the distance…

… i finished reading Modern Nature this morning and turned to my news feeds… after scanning a few articles:

• about the removal of a Thomas Jefferson statue in NYC
• about the pending Supreme Court stay request on the Texas abortion ban legislation
• about the need to upgrade our defense system sighting a new Hypersonic missile China tested recently

… i turn to my arts feed and first up is an article on Tilda Swinton who talks about “the Life-Altering Potential of Great Cinema… with the possible exception of “HB,” TS makes more appearances in Modern Nature than anyone else… a loyal friend and collaborator of Derek Jarman… TS has three new films out… i think i may need to go on a TS binge…

… i am on the last number of pages… DJ’s health is deteriorating…

… he is starting to cancel work… a short film with Annie Lenox… his physical condition getting in the way of concentration… i find myself wishing i had successful creative friends of the Lenox caliber…

… Beth Chatto comes to see DJ’s garden… she’s a celebrity i never heard of… looked her up on Wikipedia… well known plantswoman, garden designer, author… Christopher Lloyd is with BC, is it that Christopher Lloyd?… he makes more of a deal about Beth Chatto…

… migraines and blindness… back to the hospital… Berlioz’s death march from Symphony Fantastique starts playing in my head… he’s frustrated, but not that sad…

Full dusty orange moon glimmers over the sea, climbs over the house.

A midnight hedgehog rustles through the flower bed. I switch the light on in the kitchen and the spiders scatter. Over beyond the Long Pits bush fires flare. A house burns down in Lydd.¹

… the book finishes with one entry in September of 1990… i find his Wikipedia entry which tells me he died 19 February 1994… three more years of the descent… i hope he was able to be happy some of the time… i hope he was able to enjoy his garden…

… cold this AM… not sure i dressed warmly enough…

… K walking their dog… they say good morning… we discuss how cold it is…

… no clouds… sun isn’t up yet… air is clear and still…

… sitting by the falls…

… a possible way to curate my photos… color in the Apple ecosystem, b&w in Lightroom… color when shared the same day… b&w thereafter… rules… there always need to be defining rules…

… returning home… bird tweeting loudly… other birds twittering in hushed tones…

… photos from the walk…

Mario Giacomelli (Italian, 1925-2000)

Figure (My Mother), No. 130

1956; printed 1981

Gelatin silver print

40.1 × 30.1cm (15 13/16 × 11 7/8 in.)

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser

… another exhibit that has recently closed, but Dr. Bunyan’s reviews are so thorough with tons of images, that they are a bit like going to the exhibit…

… Dr. Bunyan’s reviews are from a love of photography and art perspective as well as an academic one… they are long, but worth a close look…

Martin Amis, from This Land

… as part of my program of disengaging from Feedly (a google product) i have been migrating feeds to Feedbin… this morning i migrated news and photography feeds and i am catching up on what has happened recently (forget about what i missed, it was too much to catch up on!)…

… Brad Feuerhelm is another of my favorite photography book reviewers… in contrast with Jonathan Blaustein’s down to earth conversational style, BF is more considered, thoughtful in his reviews… there is a touch of the serious poet in his approach to writing about the books he reviews… an attempt to render in a literary way what he has experienced visually in the book at hand… an example:

When we think of this land, by birthright or other nomadic means, we are reminded of our traipsing, our travels, our genesis, and our need for home, however temporary. This land is glacial. This land defines us. It places us on the long contiguous cartography of being human. It moves ever so slightly to overgrow the previous year’s warrens and dens, to combat the desire paths we form as necessary shortcuts over 1000s of years, these paths befit of the constraints of time between points of fixity allying A and B. This land slumbers and turns slowly, gravity is its only force majeure. This land is how we define our position. It is the rotating compass beneath our feet.¹

… this morning’s book review was on work that reminds me somewhat of my own… it’s all in black and white… it’s all landscapes… no people in any of the photos shared in the article…

… which, unfortunately, has just closed but you can savor it to some degree in his review which ends on this note…

_ Art is, and has always been, a huge part of humanity’s salvation._

Art is an act of creation, and represents the best of us, as a species.

So let’s not forget that, in 2021, when so much bad-behavior gets us down.¹

… JB is one of my favorite reviewers of (mostly) photography… his anecdotal style and deep knowledge of what is going on in the world of photography combine to make just about every review he does amazing… always worth the read…

… pursuant to my frustrations with my computer, i have been investigating replacing it… today i discovered that i can get almost $500 for my current computer as a trade in… this brings getting a new computer into the realm of possibility… lets do this!… far too much time wasted waiting for the computer to do this or that… we will get something maxed out on ram and with a decent amount of hard drive storage…

… depressing Nichole Wallace segment yesterday… the gist is it seems unlikely that voting rights legislation will pass the Senate… credible liberal pundits predict it will put conservatives in power for decades to come… if true, it will now be up the voters to turn out and win the day… lets hope they can…

… running a thorough clean up, speed up scan of my computer…

… the dogs have been restless… up at 2 AM… now at 5… sleep is difficult…

… i realize in terms of money owed and trade in value i can reduce amount to borrow for a new computer to somewhere around 1.2 K… the payments on that manageable if Apple lets me do that…

… devoting time to maintenance and transfer to new programs/apps activity… just finished transferring photography feeds over to Feedbin…

… incredibly slow computer… seriously thinking about buying a new one… need a faster computer maxed out on RAM…

… trying to figure out a simple immediate workflow for picture editing… don’t have one…

… groping around in the dark… looking for a way forward…

… chilly this morning… an air conditioner running…

… my back hurts… i should start stretching again…

… the undertow is towing… deep breath… be in the moment…

… unfettered happiness seems a difficult proposition…

Paz Errázuriz, “La Jaula, Talca” (1984/2014), Inkjet print, 12 5/8 × 17 3/8 in. (32.07 × 44.13 cm)

… an article in Hyplerallergic about Paz Errázuriz’s photographs documenting trans sex worker communities in Chile during the reign of Pinochet… twenty of the photographs have entered the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angelas…