The Camera does not Lie Conventional Wisdom Proclaims and This is Wrong

The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are – Philip K Dick

To accept the conventional
To be conventional
To convien with the norm
       Is sad
But anything else
       Is mad

Newsome got his way - its Mayor Newsom vs. President Bush now with a call for a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage. Bush declared his new war with same rhetoric that he had used against Saddim Haussin. The nation must be protected from San Francisco and it’s weapons of mass sex. Governor Schwartzenger says that the state must act to prevent orgies in the street..

The photographer is always trying to colonize new experiences or find new ways to look at familiar subjects – to fight against boredom. For boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p42

Ward is wearing red on red today. Carmine red pants and a burgundy red shirt. He is not up to is normal natty standards. The pants have been pressed too often and the seat is shinny from his miles of taxi service.

Photographers are always imposing standards on their subjects – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p6

I go back to reading “Why I Write”. It’s getting warm here in the corner next to the big window, too warm for a jacket. It’s either take it off  or move on. I finish my coffee and leave.

Its Cha Cha Cha time again. What has it been - at least a month - since I was last here. I’m on my way to the Intersection for their Tuesday literature series. I ran down the list of shows that I have listed on my calendar for tomorrow night. A modern dance performance was the only one  that seemed promising. Perhaps the “Underserved” on Saturday night or maybe Fellow Travelers at the Noh space tomorrow night

There is no real difference between a childish impossibility and an adult one: the only thing that the person achieves is practiced self-deceit – what we call the ‘mature’ character – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p46

I am having a Fat Tire and new potatoes. The bartender remembered. The Fat Tire had finally replaced the Brothers’ Amber. Brothers’ brewery had gone out of business last summer. I had been substituting Boont Amber, which is what the bartender had first suggested. “No” I say, “I see that you now have Fat Tire. I’ll go for that.

The body then is one’s animal fact of, what has to be struggled against in some ways. At the same time, it offers experiences and sensations, concrete pleasures, that the inner symbolic world lacks – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p44

It’s the Rockets and Spurs on ESPN2. Score is tied at 44 at the half. A Sammy Davis look-alike is providing expert color commentary. I notice that when the sound is turned off whites seem to talk louder and faster. Black commentators talk, whites commentators enunciate - show off their tonsils. “Put up or shut up” - sportscasters are such intellectuals. That’s actually the title of the segment being aird at the moment.

Photographers need not have an ironic, intelligent attitude toward their stereotyped material. Pious, respectful fascination may do just as well, especially with the most conventional subjects – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p58

March 1941 across the pond
Fleeing invading hordes
Sailed 350 passengers in a boat
       With cabin space for 25
The Continentalization of America
        Intellectual life had begin in ‘35
When he German jews had started arriving


Now came:
        Andre Breton
        Wilfredo Lam
        Claude Levi-Straus
        Victor Serge
Victor was refused entry
        And went to Mexico instead
Claude has just died


Surreralism, poststructuralism
Followed by deconstruction
         And postmodernism
Were all played out and abandoned
American is ever vigilant
          To intellectualism
Relying instead on its nativist
          Instinct

Send them back to where
        They came from
    
Everything is known / About nothing – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p337

Rain, rain, rain - all day and into the night. It is raining today. The espresso machine at the Coffee Break is broke. No chance of fixing it today. No sense staying open.  No money to be made, I am chased off and go to Muddy’s across Campus. Fred is sitting there. I wave and say – hey Fred. Fred looks up and says, hey Fred too. As much as I like beer, Fred says, coffee is a necessity. It was Fred who had told me of this place when we were both at Hooper having our afternoon libations. Scotty calls him Dr Fred (he is a professor of physics) and Scotty calls me Intellectual Fred (he says I’m Continental and he’s right – but he is forgiving for he likes the way my mind works). What are the odds of two Freds sitting here. Well about a 100% we both agree, for it is a fact. And what about the odds of three of us in a row at this  bar reading books. The odds of that is a different matter. And of all of us drinking Bud Lites? Infintisimal, I say.


A poem constructed of gaps cut from the lived materials, because – since it could be siezed – it could not contain a single name, a single recognizable face, a single unmistakable strand of the past – Victor Serge – Unforgiving Years

Localities that have banned smoking in pubilc venues are seen a 17% drop in heart attacks after 1 years and a 36% reduction after 3 years


If there ever had been, if there ever were, somewhere in the world, another reality, it now remained in human memory as no more than a recollection, tinged more by doubt and sadness than by nostalgia – Victor Serge – Unforgiving Years