02 Meditation

Buson Haiku…

… the very first poem i read is about cutting the last flower, a peony, from the garden… peonies are spring flowers and come relatively early… it is interesting that it is the last flower in the garden, unless it is a garden dedicated to peonies only… i suspect symbolism here, as it seems one always must…

Also known as the ‘King of Flowers’, the peony is a Japanese flower that is used as a symbol of good fortune, bravery, and honour. It is often used in tattoos to signify a devil-may-care attitude.¹

… so, a poem about old age?… a life that has run out of good fortune, bravery, honor?… both?…

… a poem with bird symbolism and historical reference, written on his death bed, a winter warbler in the hedge outside and a reference to Chinese poet Wang Wei… is the winter warbler the same as the Japanese bush warbler?… if so, it is a harbinger of spring and rebirth in Japanese literature, film and art… Wang Wei was a famous Chinese poet from the Tang Dynasty period…

01 First Thoughts

… did a bird start singing extra early or do i normally not notice as early?… bird song had me awake at 3:00 AM without much hope of getting back to sleep…

… right now, fireworks going off in the distance… yes, at 4:00 AM… Independence Day…

… Heather Cox Richardson post is on the Declaration of Independence, it’s aspirations, and the similarities between the present day and the pre Civil War days… will we end in a civil war this time?… she believes that a few wealthy white men (mostly) are trying to grab all the wealth and power for themselves… it seems more foundational than that to me… i think the white male patriarchy is experiencing an existential threat moment and is reacting accordingly… that it is disgusting and wrong headed is a given… it is also instinctual and likely to cause a lot more trouble before being turned back if it is turned back… as for me… i love the multiarchy… long live the multiarchy!…

… just checked my Plausible stats… i was wondering if anyone was looking at my posts… there has been no commenting on anything i write, so it feels like i send things out into the void and nothing comes back… Plausible stats suggest otherwise… there has been a steady increase in views since i began tracking, and it is useful to share things on FB as it does drive the most traffic to the site…

… and now that i have written the above i sit here wishing i was able to let go of the need for attention… that i just put it out there and let it have the life it has without my ego being staked to it… make because you need to make… what the world does with it after that is up to the world…

… and then the countervailing argument that we seek recognition because recognition enhances our ability to survive and thrive… we are programmed to seek it… from the get go… as they say… so maybe it’s a matter of just acknowledging it as it floats through consciousness… yes, i see you ego, you want to be loved… there, there, here’s a big hug… now move on, i have better things to do than let you twist me up over lack of attention…

05 Mindfulness

_ Rain drops fall on the creek— the news spreads concentrically._

04 Tarra St. Hill

… an article about TSH in AnOther Magazine… i am initially interested because the lead photograph is of TSH from the waist up, naked… yes, the sex hook worked as it usually does…

… AnOther Mag is largely a fashion focused publication, but includes some good spreads on art of the moment, especially photographic art… in the past i have not been much interested in fashion, but a niece in the fashion industry and my interest in how women are presented photographically have converged to inspire me to pay more attention…

… TSH was apparently a muse to Corrine Day who was a fashion photographer, documentary photographer, model and author of Diary, in which she wrote about the experiences of herself and the constellation of people around her… Diary, published in 2000, sounds as though it has been generationally important… and when i look the book up i discover it is out of print and collectible, selling for north of $300 for a hardcover copy… it’s available as an ebook through a membership gated portal… i will investigate that later…

… as i read the article on the new TSH zine… it strikes me as largely a PR piece meant to enhance the notoriety of TSH… that the article leads with a partially nude portrait is to draw people (especially men?) in… TSH reminds me of the Blade Runner character Priss in the selection of photos offered from the magazine… i imagine that is intentional…

03 I’m Back?

Kitchen & Coffee

… this is my first time back in one of the local cafes i used to frequent since the beginning of the pandemic… i have been thinking it was time… i walked through the door and J greeted me enthusiastically… they remembered me!, twenty-something lady, one of the numerous baristas i got to know before the pandemic…

… this place used to be Ella’s Bellas, was sold to the current owners who changed the name… they renovated it and it is more slick than in the old days, nice, bright, contemporary vibe… music to go with it…

… mother and child walk in, child is a toddler, mother is masked, child is not, more people arriving… tall, willowy young woman dressed in black, wearing a mask, reddish hair… she settles at a table in front of me…

… i wonder about the mother and toddler mask configuration… toddler too young to be vaccinated, curious why mom comes in masked but doesn’t worry about toddler so much?… hmmm…

… i learned something interesting about seasonal referencing in Japanese haiku vs North American haiku… seasonal referencing in North America is much less important because from one part of the continent to another, the seasons can be quite different… no winter in the south the way it is known in the north for example… consequently a seasonal reference is less universal than it would be in Japan a small (by comparison) island country…

… chicken duties while E and B are gone includes a morning visit to let them out of the coops… picked up a couple of eggs for breakfast while i was at it…

… dance music playing… seems a little too throbbing for this time of day…

02 Meditations

Buson haiku…

… several poems land in this morning’s set…

… one about old man ears and the sound of rain falling down the rain pipe… my old man ears are listening to the rain hitting the pavement outside…

… another one talks about hearing the moon and seeing the frogs croak… what an odd displacement…

… several flowers are mentioned…

… white chrysanthemum…

Chrysanthemums have noble connotations, appearing on the Japanese Imperial Family’s crest for generations. But white chrysanthemums indicate purity, grief, and truth, and are used for funerals.¹

… the peony…

The Japanese peony, considered the “King of Flowers,” has a symbolic meaning that includes wealth, good fortune, honor, daring and masculine bravery. The peony originated in China; around the eighth century, the Chinese introduced the peony to Japan.²

… the iris…

from dark purplish variants to their more pale, pastel violet hues, these are used to represent loyalty, having a noble heart, and good news.³

… i have plunged down a rabbit hole on haiku, reading more and more about what makes haiku, haiku… a lengthy article on the rules developed in North America for haiku content and structure and how those rules are contrary to the classic haiku traditions exemplified by Basho and Buson…

01 First Thoughts

… bird singing brought me to, such a nice way to wake up, with the birds, unless you have a summer job at the Ford Motor plant and the birds mean you have to get up and go to work on the assembly line… took a few years before i enjoyed the sound of birds at dawn again…

… trip to have lunch and get goodies at S’s restaurant was a success, especially for H, who craves getting out and seeing family…

… i made a post to Micro.blog and shared it to FB, not much attention either place, but that’s ok, i am making the record in a place that isn’t trying to collect all my data and sell me things… i am focusing my attention on Micro.blog, nice community, add free… none of my geographically local friends are on it that i know of, but i am slowly making new acquaintances from around the world…

… it is raining out… i can hear the rain splashing on the pavement outside my studio window… it is cooler too… speaking of which, my desktop fan should arrive today… hoping it will make my studio bearable to work in when the heat returns as it is supposed to this week…

… Heather Cox Richardson and The Economist Magazine both talking about the perilous time for democracy our country is passing through… the alarm bells are being sounded… HCR’s post talks about the parallels between now and the time leading up to the Civil War, and, hard to believe, it was worse then… the Economist article points to the changes in the power to certify and administer elections as the greater threat compared to legislation that restricts voting and some claim is targeted to communities that vote more Democratic than Republican… in the 1860’s, Republican Party resistance (the Republicans were the more liberal party back then) and public disgust eventually preserved democracy… it’s not predictable which way things are going to go in the next few years… for the moment, Democrats have greater control over the leavers of Federal government than the Republicans had in the 1860’s, which puts them in a stronger position to resist…

08 Road Trip Part II

… Cafe Mutton…

… and then there’s the food…

Tortilla Espanola

Fried Baloney Sandwich

… i have never had one of these but apparently it’s a New Jersey thing… Freihoeffer’s bread, Helman’s Mayo, balogney made on premises…

Salad of the Now

… red lettuce, scallions, blue cheese…

Cherry Toast

… Centre of buratta cheese, bread, cherries…

… total yum!…

… on the way back we stopped at Quatro’s custom butcher and purveyor of fine foods…

… we picked up an awesome ribeye steak, smoked garlic and pheasant sausage, smoked duck breast, and some fresh corn…

… once home we cut the steak in half, cooked one half and saved the other for another day…

Pan Seared Ribeye Steak

… the steak was awesome!

07 Road Trip!

… heading up to my niece’s new restaurant, Cafe Mutton, in Hudson, NY for lunch and some goodies to bring home…

06 Plans, Mice and Men

… was all set to do some photo import to Lightroom Classic but it appears numerous updates came out while i was on vacay… sooo… let’s get up to date!…

04 The New Woman Behind The Camera

… this one is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, so i have no excuses for failing to see it… i purchased the catalog a while back and am happy to be reminded to go see the exhibition… as i have mentioned in the past, all things camera and woman interest me… it’s my personal wormhole… don’t you have one?

03 LES RECONTRES DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE

… if i were in France in the next few months i would make a beeline for Arles to take in the photo festival…

02 Meditation

Buson Haiku…

… the first poem stands out most to me today… a bottomless tub blowing around in the autum wind… it seems so contemporary, i can easily imagine the scene happening in the coming fall… what constitutes a tub for a poet writing in the 1700’s as compared to now would be interesting to see… it could be that the Japanese for tub has more of the time connotations… in English, it is still a much used contemporary term…

… another poem notes a Camellia falling into an old dark well… i don’t have an image in my mind for Camellia, so i look it up… it’s like a carnation and comes in a number of colors but most prevalently in pink or red… i wonder if it signifies anything to the Japanese and look it up… here is what i find in a guide to giving flowers in Japan…

_ Among warriors and samurai, the red camellia symbolized a noble death. Otherwise, the red camellia means love. However, they don’t make good presents for people who are sick or injured because of the way the flowers “behead” themselves when they die._¹

… the flower was popular during the Edo period in Japan… Buson composed poems in the heart of that period… with that information the poem opens up… the flower as symbol of an honorable death, or as symbol of love makes sense in the poem… the flower falling into the old dark well (death) could be a straightforward allusion to seppuku, which ended with beheading by a second’s sword… it could also be a bit more allegorical, the old well symbolizing the poet himself, the Camellia symbolizing love, taken together, finding love at an old age?… could there be a may/December relationship here?…

… it seems that when reading haiku one has to examine every word or phrase for it’s possible symbolism… what seems to be a straight forward observation of a moment can be fraught with implied meanings…

01 First Thoughts

… i keep thinking that since there are first thoughts there ought to be last thoughts, right before going to bed maybe, but at the end of the day there is tiredness and usually complete readiness to go to bed…

… i am investigating the Bullet system of organizing my life and determining what matters… i am skeptical, i like systems but they usually bog me down without producing much of a positive result… this one purports to be flexible, shape it the way you need to… we’ll see… i am already breaking one of it’s rules, your journal should be handwritten… i know… but i just can’t abide the idea of producing text that can’t be copied and pasted… i am testing whether the use of Craft is for this journal system… seems like it could be…

… the temp in my studio is much more reasonable this AM… even Fiona thinks so, she is lying on the bed next to my desk… i ordered a desktop fan yesterday, to make the studio more bearable in the heat… comes tomorrow…

… Rubie, the cat, is downstairs meowing… wonder what he wants?…

… the street cleaner passes by outside…

… yesterday our neighbors H and T moved… H went over to say goodbye and discovered they had divorced and there is a big, sad story to be told… we never knew, though in retrospect, might have suspected there were issues… there were some signs, but we didn’t know them well enough to read them… it’s sad, any divorce is, and big, in addition to themselves, they have triplet boys…

05 Scenes From a Walk

05 Mindfulness

Daily Haiku…

_ Walking, lost in thought— a deer jumps across the trail._

04 Paul Phung, Sisterhood

… to encounter Paul Phung’s portfolio, Sisterhood, immediately after spending time with Jenna Westra’s Afternoons, is interesting to say the least… the parallels are significant… Phung’s project shoots women who are dancers… Westra’s project shoots women who are dancers… both make claims to displaying feminine intimacy, though Westra’s work is a deeper study of the feminine…

… costuming has removed the sexuality of female bodies as in issue in Phung’s work, the women dance in robes with copious amounts of fabric which hide features of the female body that could signify overt sexuality…

… largely, i react to Phung’s work as a study of dance and female dancers… the choreography is not that of the artist as it is in Westra’s work, and Phung remains removed from the work since he does not, could not, participate in it as subject, and he photographs from a distance, no close in crops…

… i enjoy Phung’s photographs, they are well done, but they actually lack the intimacy claimed, which is further made remote by dance representations of what intimacy amongst women is…

03 Jenna Westra, Afternoons

… i’ve taken my first page by page tour through Afternoons, by Jenna Westra…

… here is what i notice…

… the artist includes photographs of herself throughout and uses a cable release in several of the portraits which marks the portraits as self portraits and identifies her amidst the multiple women who are subjects of photographs in the book…

… thus, one woman in particular, the artist, has prominence in the book as the only individual with a name and a presence that goes beyond studies of form and the feminine… the choice to include herself without such clear identification for the other women is significant and shifts what the book would be without it… yes, the other women are sometimes identified in the title of a picture, all, i presume, are listed at the end… it’s not possible to be certain, as there is a list of names but only as individuals to be thanked, one wonders about these choices…

… keeping the female subjects of the photographs largely unidentified supports the feminine generalities of the book…

… there are full and partial nudes in the book… they are outnumbered by images of women with some kind of clothing on… only one of the nudes¹ strikes me as being at all sexual, attractive to the male or female gaze… a woman’s sex potential is not an overt theme of the book, rather, it is feminine form, femininity and an intimate society of women together… it is not to be assumed that the women are lesbians either… they are there, with each other, as a sisterhood… or perhaps, as alter egos, different dimensions, of the artist herself…

… the book is well done, a mixture of black & white and color images, it has a nice pace…

… there are layers of intent and meaning to peel away, more is revealed with each pass through the book…

… a very nice photobook experience…

02 Meditations

Haiku of Buson

… i read more on haiku yesterday, trying to ascertain what makes a haiku a haiku as i continue to compose my own on a daily basis… many of the “rules” are broken these days, as they were even in the days of Basho and Buson, though more regularly now…

… of today’s six poems the first stands out because it shadows my own present experience… a grove in summer, and no leaf stirring, meaning no breeze, no relief, which is frightening?, such stillness is frightening, full of portent…

… i read yesterday that haiku’s are the capturing of moments of revelation, sudden understanding… i don’t think the Buson poems are this… i think they are renderings of momentary experience, any leaps being made are leaps into the moment… noting the moment, opens doors for further contemplation…

… another poem depicts the reflection of the moon on the water, which escapes the nets and ropes… a reflection of the moon, not the moon itself… why not look directly at the moon?… why not be in that moment?… something magical about light shimmering on the water… something magical about moonlight… i am reminded of Monet’s waterlily paintings, where what’s reflection and what’s not is a central theme… what is it about reflections that make them so enchanting?… surface of water, humankind’s first mirror?… still water… i wonder if, when we look in a mirror, we have memories of ancient still water mirrors programmed in to our brains… to apprehend the self, that it is self seen in the reflection, what kind of leap is that?…

01 First Thoughts

… struggling a little to wake up this morning…

… we finally got thunderstorms and some rain last night… it’s cooler this morning by my studio hasn’t gotten the memo… i don’t know what it is about this room, but the air does not circulate, it takes it a while to catch up with the rest of the house, and i have no AC in the room… uggh…

… there have been summers where i have moved my desktop computer down to the dining room (where there is AC) and spent July, August and some of September there… so far i haven’t moved, we’ll see…

… news that Bill Cosby has been set free on a technicality… people with money to fight have way better prospects than those who do not… an unfair, unequal justice system… only thing that could be called good about the situation is that it is a black man with the resources to find and pursue the technicalities… he is still a rapist…

… Fiona breathing, sleeping on the floor behind me…

… birds chittering, chattering, tweet-tweeting, warbling, all the sounds that birds make… it’s still pretty dark, but they know the sun is coming…

… Fiona has a vet appointment today… annual physical, should be nothing more than good health confirmation… i need to get going on some of the doctoring i need to do…

06 Mindfulness

… today’s haiku…

_ Oppressive heat— where are the thunderstorms?_

05 Scenes From a Walk

04 Garden Goodies On The Way!

03 Afternoons, Jenna Westra

… i ordered this book prior to leaving on vacation, forgot that i had, was pleasantly surprised to see it in the mail pile when i returned…

… for some time now i have been interested in the subject of women in photography, as subject/object, as photographer, as critic… i became especially interested in the “male gaze” vs the “female gaze,” as i was noticing increasing numbers of women photographers photographing other women nude… i often found the nude images made by women as “male gaze” provocative as those made by men, and wondered how that squared with the feminist idea that it is not helpful that women are continually objectified as sexual objects, not to be taken seriously as intelligent accomplished beings in their own right…

… i ordered this book because it is entirely about the female body, singularly or with other female bodies, with some full or partial nudity, but as often dressed and posed in ways that allow an appreciation of youthful feminine form without being open to an overly sexual read…

… from the opening essay by Orit Gat…

Many of the photographs feature degrees of nudity. Once this book, these photographs, are out in the world, the tender consciousness of being seen between the models and the artist or the cameral shifts. Whatever eyes rest on them, though, will recognize different things in their freedom. It’s hard, maybe impossible, to talk about a female gaze without it reading like a translation of the terminology of the male gaze. The comfort nude women feel around one another will read as familiar to many, and like a secret society to others. The photos do not explore the difference per se, but they also do not generate tension around the history of nude representation. Instead, there is tenderness.¹

… it’s a deep subject that has brought lots of feminist literature into my library, Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex, for example…

… the biggest thing i have learned is that consent, then intent, matter… the models should always have agency in both agreeing to be photographed, how they are photographed and how the photographs are to be used after being made… intent also matters… and even when intent serves a good purpose, is not objectification of subject, the image can always be appropriated as such when it engages the male gaze, which often is the case…

02 Meditations

Buson Haiku…

… an old well with a fish jumping at the bottom of it… this reminds me of the “frog pit” at Madam Brett factory… a little square plumbing access pit, no more than 30” square, filled with water, and a frog living in it… such a circumscribed world… i wondered why the frog chose to live there… how it made a living… did it reproduce?… did it ever come out of the pit?… i used to visit the pit regularly until someone decided to seal it up… it seemed like a sacred place, an old well… i wonder how the fish came to be living in the old well?… did someone put it there?… this leads me to a childhood memory, when i discovered a live trout in a cistern on a property near the road… someone must have put it there, to keep it clean?… to preserve until a future dinner?…

… another of the poems describes the beyond-reproach nature of the pigeon and questions whether the mountain cuckoo is… a little research on the internet suggests that the cuckoo was often considered an ill omen, portending tragedy or doing the bidding of the restless dead as in this Kunisada print on the tragedy of the Soga Brothers…

… pigeons are a more benign bird in Japanese lore, encouraged on the grounds of temples and shrines where they are thought to assist the transmission of “hopes and prayers” to the appropriate deities… a woodblock print by Watanabe Seitei, “Ginko and Pigeons”…

… the depiction of pigeons with a Ginko tree, often depicted as Buddah’s Dragon Tree, is a significant indicator of the benign, possibly sacred, nature of the pigeon in Japanese lore… both Ginkos and Pigeons were encouraged on temple grounds¹…

… Ginkos are symbols of longevity, living as long as 1000 years²…

… Ginko trees were among a number of tree species that survived the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and continue to live³…

… well, this morning’s meditation turned into a bit of a research paper…