Mementos #2

These aren't all exactly mementos from my house, because no, I lost sight of that particular project immediately. But they're 7 photos (I know: I owe 14, but 7 is what you get) for installment #2. Because I do want to keep this project going. So, here:

A netsuke that my friend Mary gave me,
together with a scented candle.

The erasable pens that I use for proofreading Getty Museum catalogs.

A beautiful afternoon on the Big Sur River
with my niece Erica and her daughter, Kimberley—
and of course David and the Milo.

An afternoon walk with Tesi at Fort Ord Dunes SP.

Our neighbor's cactuses are blooming AGAIN!

Bee in ice plant.

Ravi flexing his stuff.

Saul Leiter, photographer

Today's discovery thanks to Teju Cole: Saul Leiter (1923–2013), whose photographic work in the 1940s and 1950s especially, with color film especially, earned him a name within the New York School of photography. He later went on to work as a fashion photographer for the top fashion magazines. Here are a few of his shots, so many of which feature umbrellas and weather, and NYC urbanscapes. Gritty and beautiful at once. (I didn't record all the titles and dates, sorry...)

Red Umbrella, 1958

Lanesville, 1958

Straw Hat, 1955

Walking with Soames, 1958

Through Boards, 1957

Canopy, 1958

Snow, 1960

Pink Umbrella, c. 1950

Here's what Teju Cole says about Leiter: 

The content of Saul Leiter's photographs arrives on a sort of delay: it takes a  moment after the first glance to know what the picture is about. You don't so much see the image as let it dissolve into your consciousness, like a tablet in a glass of water. One of the difficulties of photography is that it is much better at being explicit than at being reticent. Precisely how the hypnotic and dreamlike feeling is achieved in Leiter's works is a mystery, even to their creater. As he said in In No Great Hurry, laughing, "If I'd only known which ones would be very good and liked, I wouldn't have had to do all the thousands of others."

Mementos #1

I think I'm going to try a new daily project—only this one will be posted weekly. It'll be of things: things that decorate my house, things with sentimental meaning, things that I find amusing, things that I use regularly, things that I never use and should really get rid of. The stuff I've gathered, or that's come down to me. I've just scanned quickly through the zillions of photos on my phone (I do not like the fact that Apple has me so beholden to my phone, and to the Cloud, for the sorting and storage of my photos, but I don't have enough time or energy right now—or perhaps ever—to become unbeholden...) and singled out a few that count in this new project. So here they are. The first one, taken this evening.

A water glass, Arcoroc, made in France;
I found it in the middle of Carlson Blvd., El Cerrito,
right around the corner from where we were living,
back in 1985 or so. Today it is my wine glass of choice.

Some of my mother's many spectacles. Now that I am
becoming a connoiseur of spectacles myself (distance, reading—
and I'm getting close to a third pair, for computer/piano),
I appreciate the gift of vision that these gave my mother,
who suffered from macular degeneration toward the end
of her life of 93 years. Today I visited the eye doctor,
and he assured me that my own, growing collection
of spectacles is perfectly normal. In a few years,
a cataract operation will be in order, but until then,
I should enjoy all those stylish frames!

Dessert plates, painted by my grandmother,
Annie Hooten Skinner

My father's slide rules; he died in 1978,
at age 70, so never got to gain expertise
in computers, but I know he would
have loved them

There will be books in this project...

A bellydance scarf that adorns the floor lamp by my bed;
I bought it in a fit of optimism after a lesson
with my friend Carolee, thinking: yes!
I will be a bellydancer! if I have the scarf,
it will make it so! (it did not; but I like the scarf)

Okay. There's a sampling of what I envision. Let's see if I remember to keep this up. I'm thinking a Friday post, every week for... gulp... 52? Do I have that many things to showcase? We'll see!

Penelope Umbrico, appropriation artist

I am reading a wonderful book of essays by Teju Cole called Known and Strange Things. He's smart and his interests are wide ranging. Currently I'm in a section titled "Seeing Things," about film, photography, and more. He's mentioning so many artists I have never heard of, and his descriptions send me immediately to Google so I can see the works in question.

One of those artists, Penelope Umbrico, is featured in a color illustration insert, and I really enjoyed the representative image, an excerpt of a larger installation called 541,795 Suns from Flickr, from 2006:

Umbrico's MO is to search the web for a subject—in the case of the above, it was "the most photographed subject," which turned out to be sunsets, and from there she isolated the suns in the sunset photos she found on the photo sharing website Flickr. 

Here are some other collages she's created in a similar manner:

This one is called Range (1850–2012) of Aperture Masters of Photography (2012), which she describes here. It's mountains as shot by "masters of photography," variously manipulated through apps to create and mimic the mistakes of analog film photography.

Sun/Screen/Scan (2018), described here: in a nutshell, disassembled computer monitors, laptops, tablets, and phones.

 

 

Everyone’s Photos Any License (654 of 1,146,034 Full Moons on Flickr, November 2015) (2015), described here.

136 Mini Film Cameras in the Smithsonian Institution History of Photography Collection With Old Style Photoshop Filter (2012), with more information (include a close-up of the various assemblages) here.

 

A collection of "previously owned" ceramic cat figurines advertised on eBay (2015–ongoing), described here. 

 

And finally, circling back to sunsets:

 

 

Titled Sunset Portraits from 33,755,447 Sunset Pictures on Flickr on 08/16/17 (2017).

There are many more subjects and collages, all detailed at length on Umbrico's website. 

I appreciate the obsessiveness of Umbrico's searches and the artistry of her representations. I'm not quite so obsessive myself, but I can imagine getting lost in such a project. 

Book Report: Before the Fall

13. Noah Hawley, Before the Fall (2016) (6/30/22)

I've hit the ground running work-wise (two proofreads, a big long edit), which means I'm in the mood for pure schlock when it comes to reading material. I don't remember where I ran across this book—someone on FB mentioned enjoying a more recent book of Hawley's, I think, and I thought I'd give him a try but start with a paperback? Maybe. And this one gets all the good buzz: "Mesmerizing . . . one of the year's best suspense novels" (Janet Maslin, NYT); "an astonishing, character-driven tour de force" (Karin Slaughter); "I was spellbound from first page to last" (Pulitzer Prize–winning Michael Cunningham).

And yeah, okay, I was pretty captivated. It was a good suspense novel. I enjoyed the characters, and Hawley's treatment of them. Maybe it's just hard for me to use such superlatives when it comes to a thriller. But yes, I enjoyed this book.

It's the story of a small-plane crash, eleven people on board: pilot and co-pilot, flight attendant; the plane's owner, head of a FOX News sort of media enterprise, and his wife and two children; a friend of his, a money mover (not necessarily legitimately), and his wife; and a somewhat random artist, a farmers-market acquaintance of the media guy's wife on Martha's Vineyard, where the flight originates, en route on a would-be quick hop to greater New York.

The artist and the four-year-old son of the media mogul are the only survivors, thanks to Jack LaLanne—thanks, that is, to the artist, Scott, having watched as a boy as the 1960s fitness guru LaLanne swam from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay to Aquatic Park with hands bound and towing a two-ton boat. This detail is probably not something that most readers care much about, but I grew up with a mother who regularly visited the Jack LaLanne gym in Santa Monica, getting her laps in, and seeing him in black-and-white on TV in his jumpsuit, so . . . I am a little fascinated by his inclusion in this narrative. That incident inspired Scott to become a really good swimmer, which in turn allowed him to swim many miles in the dark towing a small child and wind up alive on a beach on Long Island. 

The book goes on to present the real-time story of the investigation and media hoopla following the crash, and alternatingly to give us the backstory of every victim of the crash—presenting clues, as it were, as to what actually happened. Was the crash pilot error? mechanical failure? sabotage aimed at the money guy? revenge against the media mogul? Something else? We also are along as Scott keeps tabs on his rescuee, and comes to know the boy's aunt and her not-especially-tolerable husband. 

It is a story of life and motivation, of an effort to understand, of questioning and finding answers.

The ultimate solution to the puzzle of What Happened was a bit anticlimactic, but in the end, only a few solutions could have worked, and any of them would probably have felt a little flat, a little pat. What I especially enjoyed was Scott and seeing how he navigated his journey. 

I flagged a few passages (the writing is really good). Here's one, the start of a chapter about a wealthy heiress, Layla, who takes Scott in for a while—for her own reasons, which have nothing to do with fame and fortune.

The things money can't buy, goes the famous quote, you don't want anyway. Which is bullshit, because in truth there is nothing money can't buy. Not really. Love, happiness, peace of mind. It's all available for a price. The fact is, there's enough money on earth to make everyone whole, if we could just learn to do what any toddler knows—share. But money, like gravity, is a force that clumps, drawing in more and more of itself, eventually creating the black hole that we know as wealth. This is not simply the fault of humans. Ask any dollar bill and it will tell you it prefers the company of hundreds to the company of ones. Better to be a sawbuck in a billionaire's account than a dirty single in the torn pocket of an addict.

I will probably read Hawley again, if I remember to look for him. 

Book Report: The Galápagos

12. Henry Nicholls, The Galápagos: A Natural History (2014)

I started reading this book on board the Samba as we spent two weeks sailing among the various islands of the Galápagos: Genovesa, Marchena, Isabela, Fernandina, Floreana, Santa Cruz, Floreana again, Española, San Cristóbal, Santa Fé, Bartolomé, Santiago, Rábida, and North Seymour. It was an amazing trip, and photos will follow (assuming I can schedule in the curating time: it's up to me!). Our capitán and guide, Juan Salcedo, was a font of knowledge and information, so I ended up relying mainly on his drawn-in-the-sand mini-lectures about all things evolution, Darwin, extinction, speciation, vulcanism, predation, island biogeography, birth and death—and so much more. Still, it was good to turn to this book again on my return home, and see many of the topics Juan had covered, all of which I could now put into context. I was there! I saw these things! 

The ten chapters cover, in order, rocks (vulcanism and plate tectonics), ocean (including the currents, Cromwell, Humboldt, and Panama, that define the hot-wet and cooler-drier seasons), seabirds (frigatebirds, tropicbirds, and boobies, among others), plants (think desert islands: plenty of prickly pear, for starters), invertebrates (land snails and butterflies), land birds (mockingbirds and finches), reptiles (iguanas land and marine, not to mention giant tortoises), and humans, parts I, II, and III.

Here's a brief excerpt from the prologue:

The landscape is both hostile and beautiful; the wildlife is sparse yet striking. Scientists have documented just over 4,000 species native to the Galápagos, around 40 percent of them endemic, found here and only here. It's not just this 40 percent, these 1,600 species, that owe their existence to the Galápagos. There are now around 30,000 people living in this far-flung constellation of islands whose livelihoods depend—either directly or indirectly—on the integrity of the ecosystem and the tourism-based economy it fuels.
     More widely, Ecuador cares deeply about this otherworldly territory it acquired in 1832. For its small size (occupying less than 2 percent of South America), Ecuador has an impressive range of habitats, making it one of the most biodiverse countries in the world (thought, for instance, to be home to almost half of all the bird species on the continent). Yet when it comes to international tourism, these other offerings just can't compete with the pulling power of the Galápagos. For many travellers, it's the sole reason for paying Ecuador a visit at all.

I've been to Ecuador twice now. The first time was for the birds, and that trip sent me east, into the Amazon basin. I am very glad now to have gotten a look at this distinctly different, and oh so special, landscape to the west. And thanks to Darwin, one might say, it's getting at least much of the protection it needs....

Book Report: Long Bright River

11. Liz Moore, Long Bright River (2020) (5/23/22) (BB#4)

A mystery/thriller that goes deeper than mere plot, this book explores a particular place—the rough Kensington district of Philadelphia—and the dynamics of family, within the context of the opioid crisis. It begins with police officer Michaela (Mickey) Fitzgerald being first on scene of a reported overdose, which she recognizes as murder by strangulation. Soon, other, similar deaths are announced. And Mickey becomes increasingly worried: about her younger sister, Kacey, who struggles with drugs, whose ties to family are tenuous as a consequence. And who, she learns, has not been seen in over a month.

The story is told in Mickey's voice, leaping back and forth between "Now" and "Then" as she recounts, on the one hand, her day-to-day interactions and investigations as a police officer and, on the other, her and her sister's growing up, raised by their grandmother after their mother ODs and their father takes off, and the social dynamics of that time. The adolescent Mickey finds a place in an after-school program run by the police, where she meets an older officer who takes her under his wing. He encourages her to go to college—but that's "not done" in their social class. Becoming a patrol cop seems the next most logical option. 

The narration slyly reveals and conceals facts, allowing for some twists and turns. Many characters are introduced, making the final solution mostly believable (if only a little surprising, because that character in particular seemed to have a rather random presence in the story generally speaking).

Mostly, though, as I said, this is about more than simple plot. The dive into the past allows for an evolution to occur, one that is put to the test as the present-day events culminate.  And of course, not everyone is exactly what they seem—though some are, and friendships are lost as a result of suspicion. It's an interesting, well-paced book and kept me turning the pages. Can't ask for much more.

By way of excerpt, here's the very start of the book:

There's a body on the Gurney Street tracks. Female, age unclear, probable overdose, says the dispatcher.
     Kacey, I think. This is a twitch, a reflex, something sharp and subconscious that lives inside me and sends the same message racing to the same base part of my brain every time a female is reported. Then the more rational part of me comes plodding along, lethargic, uninspired, a dutiful dull soldier here to remind me about odds and statistics: nine hundred overdose victims in Kensington last year. Not one of them Kacey. Furthermore, this sentry reproves me, you seem to have forgotten the importance of being a professional. Straighten your shoulders. Smile a little. Keep your face relaxed, your eyebrows unfurrowed, your chin untucked. Do your job.

An aside: I have a habit of noting words I don't know at the back of books as I read them. This book had just one such: strigine, as in this description:

The girl behind the counter is thin and has bangs that go straight across her forehead and a sort of winter hat that holds them in place. The boy next to her has hair that's dark at the root and dyed a faded platinum toward the end. His glasses are large and strigine.

Moore is good at description, of both people and place. I appreciate that. And at 480 pages, I'm calling this a Big Book. My rules!