Catching up and a Special Video

PJ Harvey and Nick Cave - Henry Lee
Photo by Rocky Schenck

I am catching up on others' blogs. So much rich content over at AFD and WWST over the past week. I have a few more favorite blogs to visit before I am caught up.

Last night in my portrait photography course, my instructor showed us the still and video work of Rocky Schenk. Here is his site. He had us watch a black and white music video Schenk created with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. It is very erotic, loving, affectionate, and the visual message contrasts the message of the song and then blends with it showing opposites flowing into accents. Watch the rhythm and flow of the camera work and the natural fluid affection these two have while singing to each other.

Sadly I can not embed this video into this post. Go to this link and click on the little black and white photo entitled "NICK CAVE & PJ HARVEY - henry lee" to watch it. Imagine every individual moment in a still photograph. I am amazed they did this all in one take.

Incommunicado and Fly-over Country

And Then

Leila
Photo by SB

My plane's Goodyears touched down at San Francisco Airport (SFO) at 9:38pm yesterday. I am home from my work odyssey to northern New Jersey. I am exhausted.

I arrived at my hotel right near the stadium where the NY Jets play early Saturday evening. They are building a brand new stadium right next to the ~25 year old stadium. Kind of scary that we consider buildings that can hold tens of thousands of people as being disposable.

I could see the New York skyline from my hotel window. It was beautiful to see the lights of the Empire State Building at night rising above all the other buildings. In the morning, the city was back lit by the sunrise. The reds and oranges flowing between the buildings and painting the far wall of my room in colors you could almost taste.

I never saw the twin towers when all three of us were on the planet together. I knew where they should have been and tried to imagine them towering over the southern skyline. I wish I had seen them before their destruction so I could appreciate their loss deeper than I do.

Once I turned on my laptop at the hotel, I discovered I could only get a weak and unsteady wireless connection to the internet. This was after agreeing to pay $12 per night for access. I called the front desk and they said they "... would get a technician to look right at it." There was still no internet connectivity on Tuesday morning.

Why do hotels that charge more than $175 per night also charge for wireless access? I've stayed at Super 8s, Days Inns, Holiday Inns, and other sub $75 per night hotels where it is free? I guess the more expensive hotels know that most of their clients are business travelers and will charge it back to their company. They removed the charge from my bill.

So, I was stripped of access to the fun internet that I use my personal laptop for. I could get online at the office with my work laptop, but they have such tight security and restrictions that I was afraid to look up an address for a local restaurant. I really missed reading others' blogs, looking at art, nude women, and keeping myself entertained in the hotel.

The upside of no wireless, I read the first quarter of the dense great book 2666 by the late Roberto Bolaño. It is a great translation from the original Spanish. If you are into literature and want to read a novel about literature, I highly recommend it. It is a hefty book with 898 pages, but is well worth the read. I will talk about it more in a later post.

While flying out to NJ, I looked out my exit row window (at 6'4", I need the extra legroom) and saw USA float by under me. The country between the coasts is nicknamed the "fly-over country." Many feel the only important places to go in my country are on the coasts. After looking down upon the land and thinking of much of the politics of those areas I wondered if I felt the same.

Evening in Lavina, MT

Photo by SB

I grew up in fly-over country (FOC). I lived in Idaho, South Dakota and Montana. My family still lives in FOC. I learned to drive in FOC. I graduated from high school and got two bachelor degrees in that area as well. My first car accident happened there. A friend and love interest of mine killed herself by jumping off a cliff in FOC. I discovered self-pleasure down there. I enjoyed my first kiss, caress, blow job, tasting a woman, feeling her orgasm and mine together down there. I took my first photo down there.

Since moving away from FOC in 1997, I am not visiting as often as I used to. I am discovering new things everyday in California. I photographed my first nude here. I have enjoyed many other firsts here as well. I've grown here.

As I flew south of the Great Lakes, I looked north and around and thought about my blog friends living down there. I imagined Joe (if he hasn't left yet), Stephen and Dr. L living their lives beneath me. I looked across the aisle and out the window and imagined Z and Mrs. counting their days until they can retire and escape their current location.

I then asked for a glass of wine ( $8) and thought about FOC. It is so easy to dismiss things at 37,000 feet. You can't see people, just their cities. You can't hear them, understand them, or attempt to be with them. They just glide beneath you at 500+mph. The next people I would interact with (other than my fellow fliers) would be east coasters. I just flew over millions of people and dismissed them as scenery.

As we were flying over western Pennsylvania, I realized that I need to take a Robert Frank car trip around this country. I love this country and hate parts of it. My view of it is narrow though. I have my Montana self and my California self. I need to discover my American self. I need to see where I live in a greater sense. I need to see there are good, intelligent, fun, sexy, productive, artistic souls around this nation and learn about what they are up to. Maybe I will discover a much needed part of myself as well.

Double Post - Robert Frank

A few months ago I wrote a post about Robert Frank.


Here is a radio story about him from NPR. I agree, he changed photography.

Happy Birthday to UL and Joe!

"Away"
Photo by SB

First, if you have not visited "What We Saw Today," go now.

Second, Happy Birthday to WWST.

I discovered WWST early this year and try to follow it religiously. Trying to sum up Joe and UL's work is like describing the color blue to a blind person. You just need to visit it. I will share a few observations.

Joe's photography and writing is very inspirational for my artistic growth. His photos have a quiet sense of solitude and peace, even when they are taken in a jazz club in New Orleans. Of course I appreciate the nudes, but his photos of New Orleans, Detroit, and his sailboat are poetic beauty. Sometimes the poetic beauty is sad, but it is still beautiful. Joe's writing perfectly compliments the narrative of his photos. I hope he writes a book someday.

UL is a force of nature and spirit. She is a true renaissance woman. She embraces exploration and sensual pleasures she discovers along her path. She is smart, intelligent and wise, which very few people have all three. On top of all that, she is sexy. Her sexiness is not just her physical beauty, but her zest for the erotic sensual pleasures from simple to grand.

One of my life goals is traveling to meet these two. Until then, I will visit them in their corner of the blog world.

WE

Evening at Many Glacier
Photo by SB

For a brief moment
WE lived as one ethereal
wholly as one breath

Nothing existed
for that yawn of time except
our blended essence

We could acknowledge it
only after we left it
and mourned its passing

Even in the dimming
and the resting embrace WE no
longer existed again

Paternalistic Utopia

Currents (BW)
Photo by SB

Please read this article first about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempts to regulate everything.

http://www.slate.com/id/2228722/


I found this paragraph very interesting:

"The underlying left-right divide is not about whether government has the right to promote private virtue but, rather, about what kind of virtue it should promote. Republicans demand paternalistic policies that uphold morality or social order. In Indiana, where I recently spent my vacation, you can pick up fireworks or a handgun anywhere, but good luck buying a six-pack on Sunday. Democrats, by contrast, deploy paternalism for health and safety reasons, yielding a different set of absurdities. In California, pot is on the verge of becoming more permissible than cigarettes. Both left and right take pleasure in mildly persecuting those who fail to meet their civic ideals."

That is pretty scary stuff. One side is ruining sex, the other side food. Both sides want to "protect" us, but for very different reasons.

The conservatives want to limit us from polluting their children and their ways of life with ours. They judge right and wrong based on Christian moral issues. The left judge right and wrong based on harm to others and the environment. (That is an over simplification of both sides, but I am not in the mood to write a thesis on it.)

I supported the banning of smoking in restaurants and bars. I also supported San Francisco's attempts to ban plastic grocery bags in all stores. Some of these liberal "protections" are going a bit far though. At what point do I become a baby that others have judged as incompetent to take care of my self?

The conservative limitations scare me more than the liberal ones. Their limitations hold back freedom of expression. I can express anything within their view of acceptable speech and be praised for it. If I create a "patriotic" video with imagery of flags, tanks, smart bombs, waves of grain, enemy bodies, ultimate fighting, NASCAR and put it to a Tim McGraw song, I am a patriot and anyone who speaks foul of it "hates America, gawdammit!" If I respectfully create and exhibit a photo of two guys kissing, I am "one with Satan's Legions." I was actually told that last week for supporting a lesbian friend's coming out to her ultra religiously conservative family, no shit.

I think this is just another part of the loss of civilization. We are losing our ability to trust people (within realistic realms) to do the right thing. We don't trust them to start using energy efficient light bulbs, and they don't trust me to keep my "smut" away from naive eyes. No wonder both sides are moving away from common ground with these "us vs. them" attitudes.

Alone vs. Lonely - Revisited

Old Chair 2
Photo by SB

I've written before about my interpretations of the differences between "alone" and "lonely." I am very comfortable being alone whether at home or traveling. I am not a hermit. I appreciate being alone.

I have also written about "alone" time, which has its own unique onanistic magic. Sometimes that is one of my desires I wrote about yesterday. I've discovered that sex is beautiful when shared with someone, but it can be deeply exploratory and rewarding when it is just me.

I do get lonely, but that is a rare feeling. When I am eating alone in a restaurant, I am not really alone. I am with all the other diners, wait staff, cooks, and people walking by on the sidewalk. Being alone is very interpretive.

Below is a great link (click on photo) to Magnum photo series titled, All by Myself. I can relate to the photos.

Amboise, France - 1972

Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos

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If you get a chance, read my slightly edited article at Univers d'Artistes about use of light when photographing men and women. It is a much cleaner and better edited post than the one posted in this blog. Thanks UL for your selecting this post and publishing it at UdA.

Univer d'Artistes

My original post, Men Take the Light.